Olympics (Community)

Olympics // Community

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alphabit phalpha

Mar 12, 2002, 4:48pm
Hi Everyone,

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but here is the reply I received from
the Olympics Committee;
(maybe a logo and name contest is in order?:)

Dear Ms. Tuttle:

This will respond to your e-mail request for permission to use the Olympic
Symbol for a "Virtual Olympics" as set forth below. You may not be aware
that all Olympic imagery and terminology, including the Olympic Symbol and
even the word OLYMPIC, are protected under the Ted Stevens Olympic and
Amateur Sports Act, in which Congress granted the United States Olympic
Committee ("USOC") the exclusive right to use and control the use of
Olympic imagery and terminology in the United States. (A copy of the
relevant portion of the Act is attached for your convenience.) Congress
granted the USOC this right in order to allow it to license these marks for
the legitimate and exclusive use by our sponsors and licensees, who provide
the funding to feed, house and train U.S. Olympic athletes. Without their
support, we would not be able to fulfill these important responsibilities.
Therefore, we reserve the right to use such imagery and terminology to
those providing such support to our athletes and Olympic programs. Under
the Act, the USOC has the right to file a civil action against any
unauthorized use of Olympic-related marks. In order to protect the value
of these marks, we try to carefully police all unauthorized uses.
Therefore, the USOC cannot consent to the use of the Olympic Symbol
(regardless of the color of the Rings) and requests that you do not use the
name "Virtual Olympics" for the event but select another name altogether.

I hope that this addresses your concerns.

Kelly Maynard
Office of the General Counsel
United States Olympic Committee

swe

Mar 12, 2002, 5:52pm
well theres always the virtual oly m pic, :D
[View Quote]

zeo toxion

Mar 12, 2002, 5:55pm
Then what the heck are we supposed to call it wif we cant even use the world
olympics!?

[View Quote]

count dracula

Mar 12, 2002, 6:13pm
Maybe call it Olympia games..I cannot belive that any american can have
"copyrighted" a name of a greek city,or can he?What I also noticed in their
reply was"in which Congress granted the United States Olympic
Committee ("USOC") the exclusive right to use and control the use of
Olympic imagery and terminology in the United States"..in the United
States,,but these games are not held in USA,are they?..as I see it they are
held in cyberspace,so these rules cannot apply then?

Drac
alphabit phalpha <alphabit at swbell.net> kirjoitti
viestissä:3c8e4d65$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com...
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but here is the reply I received
from
> the Olympics Committee;
> (maybe a logo and name contest is in order?:)
>
> Dear Ms. Tuttle:
>
> This will respond to your e-mail request for permission to use the Olympic
> Symbol for a "Virtual Olympics" as set forth below. You may not be aware
> that all Olympic imagery and terminology, including the Olympic Symbol and
> even the word OLYMPIC, are protected under the Ted Stevens Olympic and
> Amateur Sports Act, in which Congress granted the United States Olympic
> Committee ("USOC") the exclusive right to use and control the use of
> Olympic imagery and terminology in the United States. (A copy of the
> relevant portion of the Act is attached for your convenience.) Congress
> granted the USOC this right in order to allow it to license these marks
for
> the legitimate and exclusive use by our sponsors and licensees, who
provide
> the funding to feed, house and train U.S. Olympic athletes. Without
their
> support, we would not be able to fulfill these important responsibilities.
> Therefore, we reserve the right to use such imagery and terminology to
> those providing such support to our athletes and Olympic programs. Under
> the Act, the USOC has the right to file a civil action against any
> unauthorized use of Olympic-related marks. In order to protect the value
> of these marks, we try to carefully police all unauthorized uses.
> Therefore, the USOC cannot consent to the use of the Olympic Symbol
> (regardless of the color of the Rings) and requests that you do not use
the
> name "Virtual Olympics" for the event but select another name altogether.
>
> I hope that this addresses your concerns.
>
> Kelly Maynard
> Office of the General Counsel
> United States Olympic Committee
>
>
>

silenced

Mar 12, 2002, 6:17pm
Sounds like an idea to me, but there was Olympic games before the United
states/England/etc ever existed, so how can they copyright those words?
It's like me saying, "Hey, I'm going to copyright is.. no one can use it
ever again without my prior permission."

-Silenced

[View Quote]

mongo

Mar 12, 2002, 6:25pm
Oh boy, now you've gone and done it - you told BodhiTah he was right about
something. We'll never hear the end of it now <just kidding>

[View Quote]

dotar sojat

Mar 12, 2002, 6:29pm
Actually, being as the servers which run AW are in the USA, by law that
places all activity within AW inside the USA also. Kinda sad but true. Thats
the reason why the EULA for AW states things about no violation of US law.

[View Quote]

binarybud

Mar 12, 2002, 6:47pm
How about calling themn the "V-Games" and instead of using connected Circles, use United Squares of different colors......:)
Did i hear someone chant "logo contest....logo contest....logo contest"?

Leo :)



[View Quote]

silenced

Mar 12, 2002, 6:55pm
LoL I think triangles would look better :)

-Silenced

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binarybud

Mar 12, 2002, 7:30pm
good idea hey how about different geometric shapes linked together...? :)


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silenced

Mar 12, 2002, 7:35pm
Hmm.. that might look a little odd though. I've got two ideas for one.. but
my question is.. basically what are the virtual olympics? (how do you have
games and such?)

-Silenced

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alphabit phalpha

Mar 12, 2002, 7:36pm
What about 5 worlds linked together by their 5 rings?:)

[View Quote]

baro

Mar 12, 2002, 8:04pm
I think the most suitable would be 5 overlapping pp16's poorly animated to
be dif colours. Would sum up aw pretty well.

ananas

Mar 12, 2002, 8:10pm
I think they are idiots. IMO the name "Olympic games" cannot
be owned by anyone, the idea and the games are way older than
any company or commitee.

Declare the world as a follow-up of the olympics of the past,
not as a copy of the olympics of the modern.

The rings - maybe, they are nothing but a symbol - but not the
idea and name.

But even if that is not a lie of this "commitee" but an idiocy
of a court, there are still lots of translations, that all will
be recognized. German is "Olympische Spiele", French something
like Jeux Olympiques (I guess), Finnish sure some long word
with a lot of N's, I', and some umlauts, but sure still good
to recognize *g

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"_
|
/\
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__/ /_

sw chris

Mar 12, 2002, 11:10pm
.....

You didn't tell them that the thing was not going to spend or make any
money, did you.

SW Chris

[View Quote]

sw chris

Mar 12, 2002, 11:13pm
hmmm well we are holding it on servers that are located in the US. I would
think they would send us a Cease and Desist order first before taking any
action.

SW Chris

[View Quote]

sw chris

Mar 12, 2002, 11:15pm
You never should have asked. =P Now I'll feel guilty if we go on with
this.

SW Chris

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alphabit phalpha

Mar 12, 2002, 11:45pm
Yup...I told them that it was a Community event with no income being made.
I wish I hadn't asked either:(
But I didn't want to see friends get in trouble....sowwy:(
And moreso...I was hoping they would give the go ahead....they are a bunch
of stuffed shirts....but put on a fantastic show!:)

[View Quote]

macb z@x.y

Mar 13, 2002, 2:48am
As a public service to those of you so busy with AW events that you
don't follow the news....

Here is what would happen if this event went ahead as planned, using the
Olympic name, and logo: NOTHING

By the time the organization got word of it and had time to do anything
REAL about it (other than have the secretary send out the standard email
response) the event would be over, and all 14 attendees would be on to
other great things. You could have all pleaded ignorance (up till now
at least) and gotten away without having all of your personal belonging
confiscated and being paraded in cages through your local community and
being pelted with stones by the local townspeople).

Why is this committee full of such stuffed shirts? : Because a lot of
their members are probably lawyers. They get paid for being stuffed
shirts. If you got paid what they do... you would be that way too!

How can such common words like "Olympic" be copyrighted? What about
the word in other languages? etc etc etc : Same way the word WINDOWS
can be copyrighted. Microsoft is suing a company that is coming out
with a product called "Lindows". Is it because they are morons? No.
Its because if they don't sue, and then someone calls a product
ZINDOWS and then MINDOWS, soon someone will actually name a product
WINDOWS and when Microsoft sues them, the judge will say that Microsoft
has not done what is necessary to protect their trademark (which
includes going after products with similar names and people using the
name even for nonprofit causes) and Microsoft will be screwed.

The Olympic Committee (whether you like them or not) makes tons of money
on all those stickers, flags, key chains, parkas, T-shirts and on and
on. They get a piece of the action on every bit of it... and if they
find a bit of it where their piece of the action is missing, they go
after that too. All of this adds up to a lot of money with which they
can hire stuffed shirted lawyers.

Anyway... have your event, why not make up your OWN catchy name for it
and invent your OWN fancy 3D logo (that Olympic logo is boringly 2D in
my opinion). Just don't call your even the WINDOWS XP GAMES, or you
will have to have this silly thread all over again.

And while you are at it... Please think about PAYING for software you
use, including AW objects, avatars and even concepts. We always hear
about BIG companies and organizations going after the little guy on this
kind of thing. The reason for that is that the starving artist isn't
in a position to take such actions. If the software you use costs too
much, find some shareware or free ware that will do the same thing.
Every time you register a shareware product you do something to bring
down the prices that the big companies charge. Think about it.

(no this is not aimed at anyone in particular here, just a pet peeve of
mine)

Check the business section of the Sunday paper every now and then and
you won't find US Copyright law so mysterious. (And by the way
International copyright law is much the same, just harder to enforce).

[View Quote] > Yup...I told them that it was a Community event with no income being made.
> I wish I hadn't asked either:(
> But I didn't want to see friends get in trouble....sowwy:(
> And moreso...I was hoping they would give the go ahead....they are a bunch
> of stuffed shirts....but put on a fantastic show!:)
>

count dracula

Mar 13, 2002, 4:58am
Yes the AW servers should definetly be moved out of USA to some less
hypocritical and less byrocratic country.

Drac
dotar sojat <dotar at ramcell.net> kirjoitti
viestissä:3c8e650c at server1.Activeworlds.com...
> Actually, being as the servers which run AW are in the USA, by law that
> places all activity within AW inside the USA also. Kinda sad but true.
Thats
> the reason why the EULA for AW states things about no violation of US law.
>
[View Quote]

dotar sojat

Mar 13, 2002, 6:32am
Oh and which country would you suggest moving it all too? Are you willing
yet another price increase to cover the cost to migrate the company out of
the US? I know I am not willing to pay for that.

[View Quote]

count dracula

Mar 13, 2002, 8:20am
I thought of never-never land,,or maybe Australia.

Drac
dotar sojat <dotar at ramcell.net> kirjoitti
viestissä:3c8f0e9a at server1.Activeworlds.com...
> Oh and which country would you suggest moving it all too? Are you willing
> yet another price increase to cover the cost to migrate the company out of
> the US? I know I am not willing to pay for that.
>
[View Quote]

brant

Mar 13, 2002, 12:11pm
Everyone's making a big deal about this as if it's the end of the world.
I'm sure that someone can think up a better (and more original name) for the
event, and even create a better logo than the Olympic rings.

Right, Chris?

[View Quote]

kah

Mar 13, 2002, 3:57pm
the good news:
"United States Olympic Committee ("USOC") the exclusive right to use and
control the use of Olympic imagery and terminology in the United States."
Note the last part, "in the United States". So, solution to problem: get it
hosted elsewhere, and the USOC ppl won't have any say... I'll look at the
Norwegian Olympic Committee, maybe they're a bit more liberal on it (if
they've got copyrights/trademarks on it anyway)...

KAH

strike rapier

Mar 13, 2002, 7:00pm
lol, host the world server in russia where the law dont apply :)

[View Quote]

strike rapier

Mar 13, 2002, 7:02pm
Olympics = Latin / Greek - Un copyrightable....

Unless some anchient greek comes allong and declairs copyright... you cant
copyright the image of the rings in all colors as it would be a infinate
copyright... I think my Classics teacher needs a word with them :P

[View Quote]

dotar sojat

Mar 13, 2002, 7:36pm
And I assume you are willing to pay for the company to move everything to
Russia? Or did you want everyone to suffer yet another price increase? Think
before you post. Moving is expensive, and they would make the community pay
for it.

[View Quote]

sw chris

Mar 13, 2002, 8:35pm
How about this?

The VOC's official position on this is:

We have no official position and we will change our logo and name when we
come up with one.

SW Chris

[View Quote]

karhsi

Mar 13, 2002, 8:35pm
I would think every country's Olympic Committee have the same rules,
it's international.

-Kar.

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sw chris

Mar 13, 2002, 8:36pm
Kah... just don't ask. Moving servers? Companies? Come on guys. Get back
to the real world and quit discussing nothing.

SW Chris

[View Quote]

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