[Random-bits] Felicity Barringer: Olympics, IPR and speech

[James Love]

This is an amazing story about the expansion of intellectual property
rights and the control over the expression and speech of individuals. 
Jamie

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/25/technology/25WEB.html

Web-Leery Olympics Limit News

By FELICITY BARRINGER

   Christie Ambrosi, the hard-hitting outfielder for the United States
Olympic women's softball team, has long had friendly dealings with her
hometown newspaper, The Kansas City Star. So, when asked, she readily
agreed to write an Olympic diary for The Star's World Wide Web site.

But shortly before she left for Sydney, Australia, in August, she sent
an e-mail message to the newspaper, saying, "As far as the diary entry,
we aren't allowed to do them during the Olympics." The International
Olympic Committee was putting teeth into its often-ignored rule against
publication of athletes' Olympic diaries during the Games.

Ms. Ambrosi was not alone. Siri Mullinix, the North Carolina-born
goalkeeper of the women's soccer team, stopped her online chats with The
Greensboro News & Record and said she could not contribute a diary
during the Games. The Hartford Courant got the same message from Karen
Scavotto, the 18-year-old archer from Enfield, Conn.

The 27th Olympic Games may be remembered for many things - world
records, peacetime logistical planning - but it will surely be a
benchmark in the struggle between those
who hold intellectual property rights in sporting events and those
seeking to cover sports, especially for the ever-expanding universe of
news outlets on the Internet.

Concerned that the power of the Internet could eventually undermine the
economic foundation of the modern Olympic movement, the Olympic
committee is going to
great lengths to control how and where the images and accounts of the
Sydney extravaganza reach the public. The committee's actions echo what
is happening in other areas of sports, as both amateur and professional
teams and leagues aggressively invoke their property rights to control
how and by whom events are covered.

Most of the committee's attention is focused on the Web. Here, streaming
video - still in its infancy - may eventually attain both the technical
quality and reach to cut into television audiences. This could, in turn,
dilute the value of the most valuable asset of the Olympics:
broadcasting rights. The Web could also spawn a horde of virtual
storefronts where those with no rights to Olympic trademarks piggyback
on the Olympic name to hawk their wares without returning anything to
the nonprofit
committee, which supports the athletes and the Games.

   [snip]


More than 20 private Web monitors on three continents are using the
latest search engine technology to monitor possible violations of the
I.O.C.'s property rights.

The strict enforcement of the diary rule hit local newspapers hard. Mike
Fannin, the sports editor of The Kansas City Star, said, "I would assume
that it is their ball and if you want to play, you play by their rules."
But, he added: "The readers miss that connection with their local
athlete. Christie Ambrosi's a softball player in the Kansas City
suburbs. When she walks into a bar, people know who she is. The Olympics
- it's all about representing your hometown, your city, your country."

Franklin Servan-Schreiber, the director of communications and new media
for the International Olympic Committee, is keenly aware of the tension
between property rights and unfettered coverage of the Games. But, he
said, "I don't think the I.O.C. can be seen in any way limiting speech
about the Olympics." He pointed out that 20,000 journalists are in
Sydney - nearly twice as many media people as athletes, all free to
cover the Games as they see fit.

    [snip]

The aggressive enforcement effort, he said, is meant to ensure that "the
association between the athlete, the sport, the values and the symbol
that represents all this is clear." The Internet has offered little
revenue to the Olympics so far. There are concerns that the Web could
cut into television audiences and undermine the economic
underpinnings of the Olympic movement. The committee took in about $1.3
billion for television rights to the Sydney games alone. NBC paid $705
million for United States
rights.

   [snip]

Floyd Abrams, a constitutional lawyer with Cahill, Gordon & Reindel,
said it was odd that "the increased availability of a means of
communication leads to a ruling seeking to assure that less is said."
But he said the I.O.C. was not a United States agency and so was not
bound by the First Amendment.

The gradual fencing off of information and imagery by sports franchises
was well under way before the Olympics. In the last few years, debates
have been joined over whether game developments can be distributed
instantly by pager (they can, a federal appeals court has ruled).

    [snip]



					
-- 
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
v. 1.202.387.8030, fax 1.202.234.5176
love@cptech.org, http://www.cptech.org