Did you know that the International Olympic Committee threatens non-sponsor advertisers just for mentioning the Olympics?
Lucky for us that Futurismic‘s too small to show up on their radar, then… but that’s not all. The IOC’s latest move in Beijing is to cover up the brand names of anything that isn’t an official Olympic sponsor – things like bathroom furnishings, or the headphones of press reporters… or entire non-sponsor hotels. And there we were questioning the ethics of the Olympics taking place in totalitarian China. Looks like a perfect match after all, no? [via TechDirt]
In more Olympics-related news, those wily Swedes behind legendary torrent-tracker site The Pirate Bay have fallen foul of the IOC as well, in this case for acting as a tracker for Olympic footage.
But far from capitulating, The Pirates have yet again used the Streisand effect to turn legal threats to their advantage and boost their public profile… which is why, should you head over there to download a video of some weightlifter popping his elbow joint out or something, you’ll notice the site has been temporarily named The Beijing Bay. Zing – gold medal for Team Sweden! [via Wired]
..I have the feeling that what is happening in sweden with the pirate bay will be taught as an example of the slow collapse of copyrights, market capitalism and several other -isms at the beginning of the 21st century. This bunch of people is driving sabots in a whole lot of cogs, and I can hear the machine starting to crunch already. I sure hope they win.