Businesses To Be Censored on Use of Olympics 520
pitpe writes "The BBC reports that the proposed London 2012 Olympics Bill bans the use of words related to the Olympics by non-sponsors, including 'Olympic', '2012', 'gold', 'summer' and 'games', amongst others. The bill is aimed at
ensuring corporate sponsors, who have provided £790m of the IOC's £2.25bn marketing revenue over the last four years, will not be deterred by 'ambush marketing' where rivals to the official sponsors try to take advantage, but businesses warn it could make it technically illegal for pubs to use chalkboards to flag up coverage of the Games." From the article: "The London 2012 website has already posted a warning listing a string of Olympic-related words and images that are off limits to all but official sponsors. And advertisers' representatives have criticised the new Olympics bill because they believe it will make it almost impossible for most companies to even acknowledge that the Games are happening without getting into trouble. "
Re:news reporting (Score:3, Informative)
Nothing new in the US either (Score:2, Informative)
Not so easy in the UK (Score:4, Informative)
Canadian Businesses (Score:3, Informative)
It's big-business greed at it's very best, especially since the coming of the olympics will ensure that the Whistler skihill will be inaccessible to anybody but the rich, as the cost of attending the olympics is beyond many average folk, and the rates in the area are already skyrocketing in anticipation of the games.
Olympics were around long before trademarks, and used to be for the people... now they're only for big-business and rich people, go figure.
Re:Ahh, Europe! (Score:5, Informative)
The USA has had similar laws with respect to the Olympics for some time now.
Not just trademark law, but a special statute protects the Olympic trademarks.
See INTA [inta.org] for more info about this, and of course, the text of 36 USC 220506 [cornell.edu] itself.
Basically, the USOC owns these words and symbols exclusively, by Act of Congress. The UK is merely "harmonizing" with the USA.
England?! (Score:3, Informative)
Wake up. It's the UK.
England's merely a region within the country known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It used to be a country in its own right, but that was hundreds of years ago.
This bill is being proposed in Parliament, which makes law that applies to the whole of the UK, not just England.
Oh, and the UK is part of Europe, just in case there's any misconception there. Us Brits have got into the habit of referring to continental Europe as "Europe", so sometimes it sounds like we aren't part of Europe, but that isn't the case.
Happened in 2004 in Australia... (Score:4, Informative)
The posters were only on campus, but the AOC threatened legal action over them.
Stupid thing is that the official advertisers would have only benefitted as by having more people watching the telecasts, more people would have been exposed to the advertising...
Somewhat over the top, IMO.
Re:"Queen's English" - US expression? (Score:3, Informative)
Is the "Queen's English" an American expression? Can anybody give me the root of where this phrase came from? In the UK I'm more aware of people talking about "BBC English" (but this is as much to do with pronunciation).
Oh, for shame...
Re:It hasn't been written into law (Score:3, Informative)
From this [startribune.com] Star Tribune article:
The band's lawyer, Dennis Pelowski, said it considered fighting the committee after receiving the initial letter this spring but backed down when he read up on the matter.
"The law is pretty clearly written," he said.
Re:UK Govt Introduces Reserved Olympic Letter Law (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.petting-zoo.net/~deadbeef/archive/582.
Re:I have an idea... (Score:2, Informative)
Although I agree with your entire idea, you are very much wrong about the McDonalds "hot coffee" lawsuit.
I'll quote one of the articles [vanfirm.com] about this. I'll try to sum it up so the lazy don't have to read the article, but I highly encourage doing some research.
Some observers wonder why McDonald's, after years of settling coffee-burn cases, chose to take this one to trial. After all, the plaintiff was a sympathetic figure - an articulate, 81-year-old former department store clerk who said under oath that she had never filed suit before. In fact, she said, she never would have filed this one if McDonald's hadn't dismissed her requests for compensation for pain and medical bills with an offer of $800.
This wasn't your typical frivilous suit. McDonalds refused to compensate her for 7 days in the hospital, third degree burns, and skin grafts. They refused to settle for her medical bills. So she decided to take a case to court. For the first time ever.
When the panel reached the jury room, it swiftly arrived at the conclusion that McDonald's was liable. "The facts were so overwhelmingly against the company," says Ms. Farnham. "They were not taking care of their consumers."
Then the six men and six women decided on compensatory damages of $200,000, which they reduced to $160,000 after determining that 20% of the fault belonged with Mrs. Liebeck for spilling the coffee.
The jury then found that McDonald's had engaged in willful, reckless, malicious or wanton conduct, the basis for punitive damages. Mr. Morgan had suggested penalizing McDonald's the equivalent of one to two days of companywide coffee sales, which he estimated at $1.35 million a day. During the four-hour deliberation, a few jurors unsuccessfully argued for as much as $9.6 million in punitive damages. But in the end, the jury settled on $2.7 million.
POSTSCRIPT - Following the trial of Ms. Liebeck's case, the judge who presided over it reduced the punitive damages award to $480,000, even though the judge called McDonald's conduct reckless, callous and willful. This reduction is a corrective feature built into our legal system. Furthermore, after that, both parties agreed to a settlement of the claim for a sum reported to be much less than the judge's reduced award. Another corrective feature.
McDonalds had filed over 700 settlements relating to coffee burns in the years prior to this 1994 suit. They served their coffee over 20 degrees hotter than other restaurants. The difference between 180 degrees F and 160 degrees F is rather large. We're talking about whether you'll get a third degree burn in 2 seconds or whether it'll take 20 seconds. Consider how quickly you can react, and how quickly the coffee can cool off, you're fairly likely to stave off severe third degree burns with the slightly cooler coffee. McDonalds said they did this on the advice of their coffee experts, but it seems more likely that they merely wanted to keep the same crappy coffee good longer.
I can't find all my links, but if memory serves right they had already been warned by governmental agencies, burn centers, and lawsuits from previous incidents. McDonald's executive Mr. Appleton even testified that they knew the coffee sometimes caused serious burns, but had never consulted a burn specialist nor did they have any plans to decrease the temperature of the coffee in the future.
Basically, McDonalds was serving their coffee much hotter than the safe temperatures to serve coffee at. Third degree burns like this are extremely painful, require hospitalization, skin grafts, and lead to permanent disfigurement and sometimes disability. Add to that the percentage of these burns being to the groin and buttocks, and I'm sure you'll see why