It wasn't copyright that ruined the Olympics. Copyright was just one tool that was used in service of ruining them.
The real ruiner is advertising. When a business makes most, or all, of its money from advertising and sponsorships that business necessarily becomes beholden to the desires of those sponsors. Companies that take advertising very rarely, if ever, say no to their sponsors, so sponsors have gotten into the habit of making whatever ludicrous and extreme demands they can come up with, because they know the answer will be yes. This is how you get a situation where Visa is the only credit card accepted on the Olympic grounds.
In the land of journalism, in magazines and newspapers, it is an ethics violation to have the advertisers influence the content. Even then, it still happens all the time, as in video game journalism. The Olympics is not a journalistic institution. It can do whatever its advertisers ask. Since each of the advertisers is paying such an enormous amount of money, without which the Olympics would not exist, the sponsors effectively own the Olympics. Even if the organizing committees would rather not do as the sponsors say, they are afraid to say no. The sponsors know that even though their demands are extreme, it mostly makes the Olympics look bad, not themselves.
I see this same thing happening in many ad-supported companies. The advertisers have more decision making power than the CEO. It's a great deal. You get to effectively own a company without actually taking any of the risks, or doing any of the work, associated with actually owning the company. And the cost of sponsorship is a lot less than the cost of buying stock.
It's still a symbiosis, and it's up to us as the consumers to penalize this type of behavior. When we don't, we indirectly support it.
For example, I wonder why anyone would put up with the logo-censoring "police" after paying (I assume) a lot to get into the games. At least they should think twice before buying their next Olympic ticket.
Since each of the advertisers is paying such an enormous amount of money, without which the Olympics would not exist, the sponsors effectively own the Olympics.
People keep saying this, but I'm not sure the numbers back it up.
The really top-tier sponsors were reportedly paying on the order of £100M for their access, and there were only a handful of them.
The cost of the London 2012 Olympics is reportedly around £10B, depending on exactly what you count.
You need a lot of sponsors to make a significant dent at that rate.
The Olympics wasn't ruined but it was crippled from becoming what it could have been. Everybody who wasn't officially organising it was shunted into the category of watching and being entertained.
The population was treated like sheep. This is actually true if you experienced the one-way systems and barriers in the public transport system and figuratively true if you experienced the TV coverage.
There was so little opportunity for collaboration. For local councils and pubs to organise their own special olympic celebrations. Local shops couldn't innovate and offer olympic specials.
During the Royal Wedding and the Royal Jubilee (Queen 60 years on throne) the general public and so many businesses made the celebration their own. It was really quite joyful. The olympics had an opportunity to incorporate that but instead went down the big corporate event path.
It's interesting, as I live in London and, even after getting a bit angry about how strong the copyright police were being, would have to admit that the Olympics were a resounding success. Everybody I met who was previously cynical grew to love the event, the city was absolutely rocking, the park was tremendous and the worst thing about it was the subsequent downer the city is now on.
That's weird, I tend to spend a lot of time in London (although I don't live there, I managed to be there for at least 20% of the time the olympics was on).
I never stopped hating the Olympics. Bread and circuses in exchange for what? Special Zil lanes for special people while our transport system groans? CrossRail, which should be finished soon? Mad logo enforcement officials?
To be fair it didn't help that I have an event in London in September and we've had to go out of our way to avoid certain phrases when we have nothing to do with the Olympics.
For the country that gave the world the rule of law, this is absolutely disgusting. Yup, bile duct's still raging.
It was so sad. An unbelievably expensive circus that mesmerized everyone for a short while, masquerading as a magical "cure" for everything. Sponsored by taxpayer money, with everyone involved (except those taxpayers) becoming a lot richer, that's the way a financial elite has come to rule the rest of the world, by lulling us into a pleasurable daze, making us poorer as they go.
The Olympics seem, in part, about creating public debt and providing a pretext to vamp up state surveillance apparatuses. Public debt creates the need for cutbacks and cutbacks create opportunities for privatized versions of formerly public services.
Not to mention the irony of multinational corporations running a show of mock national pride, the very same national pride their business helps to undermine (both financially and morally).
Marmite games! I was cynical too before they started, but was hooked after the opening ceremony. I think beseku's point was the games themselves were fantastic, and the majority of people really enjoyed it. I think the article points out some really good points though, although it didn't ruin them, it certainly put a little bit of a downer on the games.
The Games were fantastic, but I'm disappointed that something as special and symbolic as the Olympic Games making more of a marketing/commercial exploitation than "the spirit of the the Olympic Games".
I mean the whole Visa thing was an absolute pile of rubbish. I get the fact that Visa spend money to sponsor the games, but for that they get their name plastered all over the websites, stadiums and marketing material. We get it, you sponsored the Games. Thanks. Now don't stop me being able to buy tickets just because I don't have a Visa card, it's not like I can get one instantly when I am trying to buy a ticket last minute and you give me 2 minutes to enter my card details otherwise I lose my tickets... and then they won't accept my money in the stadium because I don't have a Visa, or I can't take my money out of an ATM either. I actually have a Visa, but I think this would have cause more bad publicity than good and the publicity they were trying to buy!
They did well to release more seats and fill up the stadiums when there was an outcry (it's all a learning experience...) so they should have sorted out the issue with small businesses being bullied like that.
Maybe it's always been like this and never really took much notice because it was never on my door step before...
I'm so disappointed in you and most of the rest of the world. I'm glad you think the circus was worth what you traded for it, but it seems like a large step onto a slippery slope to me.
What was traded in? The infrastructure couldn't have been built without the sponsors and restrictive agreements which, after the event, didn't have much of an effect on creating a huge party spirit throughout the city.
The only trade was sponsors for any kind of event at all and I'm glad that happened, as it was a fantastic fortnight of sport.
When I hear stories of NBC paying over a --billion dollars-- for TV rights and then hear about an Irish gymnast who had to scrounge and fundraise just to get there, I wonder what the "Olympic Spirit" is really all about.
Note for non-British readers: Boris Johnson is the Mayor of London, not the Lord Mayor of London. The latter is a largely ceremonial and supportive role concerned only with the ancient City of London, the square mile containing the financial district.
Left a comment on the original article but it was removed. Disappointing to see such pointless inaccuracy on a website devoted to a subject where nuance and precision count for so much. I could have understood getting it wrong the other way round, but the author - a lawyer educated in the UK - had to actually add a word in to make it incorrect.
No problem. We fixed it. Our blog is new and the moderated comments default was still on our wordpress. Fixed now. Thanks for heads up on the mayor's title correction.
In the age of austerity, it's great that governments are still willing to commit huge amounts of taxpayer money to subsidize corporates sporting events.
As a Londoner I think saying the corporate non-sense spoiled the Olympics is very much overstating the facts.
Yes, it left a slightly bitter after taste. Yes I'd have liked local businesses to be able to cash in to some extent on the Olympics. But seriously, it was a great event, something I will probably never see again in my lifetime and I'm glad to have witnessed it.
Unfortunately it would be really difficult to put on an event of such magnitude without sponsorship, and if everyone can associate themselves with the games then I'm sure that would ultimately reduce the value of that sponsorship.
Basically a competition between countries with large populations to pull athletes from, those with well-funded training programs, and Usain Bolt. Other than the fact that the local NBC affiliate pushed it hard, and we tuned in to see if David Tennant would light the torch (time can be rewritten) I can't say that I paid much attention.
Agreed. I had a lot of trouble finding relevant Olympic video online. For example, it took a good amount of searching to find some clips of the Badminton scandal, even a day after the occurrence. Youtube was particularly unhelpful as, I'm sure, it was policed extra hard.
The real ruiner is advertising. When a business makes most, or all, of its money from advertising and sponsorships that business necessarily becomes beholden to the desires of those sponsors. Companies that take advertising very rarely, if ever, say no to their sponsors, so sponsors have gotten into the habit of making whatever ludicrous and extreme demands they can come up with, because they know the answer will be yes. This is how you get a situation where Visa is the only credit card accepted on the Olympic grounds.
In the land of journalism, in magazines and newspapers, it is an ethics violation to have the advertisers influence the content. Even then, it still happens all the time, as in video game journalism. The Olympics is not a journalistic institution. It can do whatever its advertisers ask. Since each of the advertisers is paying such an enormous amount of money, without which the Olympics would not exist, the sponsors effectively own the Olympics. Even if the organizing committees would rather not do as the sponsors say, they are afraid to say no. The sponsors know that even though their demands are extreme, it mostly makes the Olympics look bad, not themselves.
I see this same thing happening in many ad-supported companies. The advertisers have more decision making power than the CEO. It's a great deal. You get to effectively own a company without actually taking any of the risks, or doing any of the work, associated with actually owning the company. And the cost of sponsorship is a lot less than the cost of buying stock.