Now we’re not even allowed to link to the Olympics website? | Hacker News Reader

Now we’re not even allowed to link to the Olympics website?

blog.indexoncensorship.org

28 pointsColinWright33 comments

Good. Don't link to them. Don't watch them. I care less and less about the Olympics every year. It's no longer about the competition if it ever was.

It's not even really possible to watch them this year without shelling out $100/mo for cable TV. So, hey, par for the course.

NBC should be floating through the air for free so you should be able to watch it without paying anything.

NBC doesn't play anywhere near all the events.

NBC's Olympic coverage to offer all of London Games in real time

NBC Olympics will achieve a first, making every minute of every competition available live.

"NBC will deliver 5,535 hours overall through its various platforms...An estimated 3,500 hours of that coverage will be live-streamed on NBCOlympics.com. For the first time, every minute of every competition will be available in real time."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/la-sp-oly-tv-20120714...

From that story:

"Viewers who want to access the live coverage at NBCOlympics.com will have to verify that they are either cable, satellite or Telco subscribers."

Right, as long as I only want to watch events where the US is predicted to win gold.

I agree, I stopped to care during the last winter Olympic in Vancouver.

i stopped caring in the late 80s, when it was already clear that media rights were being treated as more important than the actual sports. things have only gotten worse since then.

I never cared about Olympics.

I'm pretty sure as far as the law is concerned, they can go screw themselves silly. Linking to them, even with the most insidious and nasty terms, is 100% fair use and legal. If it weren't, you can bet things like the Santorum google bomb would have been stopped in court years ago.

You're American, aren't you?

Hint: "fair use" isn't a valid construct under British copyright law; we have a more restrictive "fair dealing" right. Nor does your First Amendment carry any weight in British law. There's a somewhat weaker right to free speech in the Human Rights Act, but it's somewhat hedged around; meanwhile the whole Olympics mess was enabled by an Act of Parliament that pretty much blows a hole through our (I'm British) civil rights in the name of holding this corruption-fest at our public expense. It's quite possible that LOCOG can make this nonsense stick, in court, thanks to the perversion of our legal framework that they pushed for and two successive governments connived at.

(I am not a fan of the Olympics 2012 arrangements ...)

Here's some further reference to the UK laws:

(http://www.out-law.com/page-9441)

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/apr/13/olympics-2012-br...)

> As well as introducing an additional layer of protection around the word "Olympics", the five-rings symbol and the Games' mottoes, the major change of the legislation is to outlaw unauthorised "association". This bars non-sponsors from employing images or wording that might suggest too close a link with the Games.

(http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/the-olympic-law-...)

The more I read about the London 2012 olympics, the more I never want to set foot in the UK. Which is a real shame because I've always wanted to visit, but it just feels like they're trampling all over basic freedoms to an extent that, to me as an American, is just utterly shocking.

> to me as an American, is just utterly shocking

Thats a rather ironic claim to make

I realize that. And one of the reasons I look at the UK is because of the behavior of my country in the past decade. But some of the freedoms that the UK is trampling on just seem so fundamental to me despite what my own country is doing.

This brings back the doubts I always had about ToS's. How do you even know what is enforceable and by what laws. I can be in country A using a website by a company with headquarters in country B, making a request to a bunch of servers in countries C & D. What about putting silly things on ToS's like "you need to drop your pants while using the service" and similar?

What about content on other websites? Do I need to comply to Facebook's terms if a website has an iframe with a like button?

I think `indexoncensorship.org' just violated these ToS, since they linked to the Olympics' ToS in a "derogatory... manner" (they criticized the contents).

The ToS could be open to interpretation...

It's possible the ToS may be saying the link text itself should be nice, etc.

So you could say something like, "The Olympics games are [insert your term here]", use the link text "Olympics" and you could be in the clear.

Use some derogatory text in place of [insert your term here], resulting in a visit by the link police who will extradite you for a long 'vacation' to some island in the northern Caribbean Sea.

Are terms of use legally binding? Do the Twitter guidelines (don't rotate the bird etc.) count as terms of use?

What is the worst that could happen here? The organisation behind the Olympics sending a letter to a site owner requesting they remove the link? And what would happen if they refused?

When the Olympics were in Vancouver they tried to shut out a Greek restaurant with 'Olympic' in the name. To me it reads the same -- they don't want People using anything that might trick people into thinking the Olympics has partnered with a company, restaurant or blog.

Which (western) countries would make such a link statement effective? I am pretty sure that here in Germany no sensible court would rule in favor of such a "don't link" rule.

Anyone can write a terms of service that says "if you link to my site, you agree to pay me US$1,000,000."

Enforcing it is another thing.

Part of me wishes this is reverse psychology. The rest of me hopes nobody will fall for it.

This is a British law. Everyone else in the world can link away.

Their terms are pretty straightforward. You're not allowed to use their logo in links, since that implies a false association. There's nothing new or broken here.

You can link with text as much as you want.

There's more to it than that. You're not allowed to use their logo in a link, true. However, you're also not allowed make them look bad with any such link. "You may not use any link to the Site as a method of creating an unauthorised association..., and agree that no such link shall portray us... in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner."

(Sorry for the snipping, but it was pretty long otherwise. I don't believe I've removed anything that changes the fundamental meaning.)

I'm so sick of people like you on HN. Open the link, look for a tiny snippet of text which looks like it's contrary to what the submitter's point is, and then bash them in the comments.

> no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner

Davidmp must have edited his comment, because your comment is far worse than his--you make a personal attack against him and provide a citation that is just as selective as his.

"Personal attack", as you put it, would be worse only if it was ad hominem, which it wasn't.

As you can see, davidmp's comment claims that "You can link with text as much as you want." The "selective" quote by tylermenezes is the smallest quote sufficient to prove false davidmp's claim.

By reading other comments, you can also see that several other readers called davidmp out on the exact same behavior as tylermenezes did and used more or less the same quote.

  > You can link with text as much as you want.

That turns out not to be the case. Quoting from the linked article, which in turn is quoting from the terms of use:

  > ... no such link shall portray us or any other
  > official London 2012 organisations ... in a ...
  > derogatory ... manner.

Feel free to actually check your facts, and double check that my quote is faithful to the original meaning.

Your headline (which you toned down from the original, to be fair) implied that we can't link to the Olympics website. This is, strictly speaking, wrong. His post suggested that you could do so, if you used text and not a copyrighted image. This is also, strictly speaking, wrong.

You are both wrong. I don't see how your sarcasm is justified.

Yes, and if I change to title more accurately to reflect exactly what the article says then it's likely to get changed by a moderator. I have become circumspect about using title that are accurate instead of the ones on the article.

I claim my response is just and proportionate because it appears that he read only the submission title, quoted from the article, and not the article itself. I believe if you're going to comment on these things and make pronouncements such as he did, then it is beholden upon you to actually read the article.

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