Photo Source: David K.K.
The Olympics are a magical time. Those of us lucky enough to have been in the city during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics know this as fact. There are truly no words to describe this event. But if you’re in London for this year’s Summer Olympics and are hoping to capture a few pictures that say the thousand words you can’t find to account for your experiences, and then share them, say, with your 800 Facebook friends, you may run into some difficulty.
According to this article, the rules for Olympic-goers are pretty clear: There is to be no social sharing of any photos or videos taken at the Games. Yes, that means Facebook/Twitter/Instagram//Flickr/YouTube…even Google+! In other words, what happens in London, stays in London. Or at least, stays off the Internet.
The very bottom of an extensive Ticketholders Terms and Conditions states: “Images, video and sound recordings of the Games taken by a Ticket Holder cannot be used for any purpose other than for private and domestic purposes and a Ticket Holder may not license, broadcast or publish video and/or sound recordings, including on social networking websites and the internet more generally, and may not exploit images, video and/or sound recordings for commercial purposes under any circumstances, whether on the internet or otherwise, or make them available to third parties for commercial purposes.”
And according to this report, security guards have already been trained to deter professional photographers. So yes, they are very serious about this. Which brings up the very obvious question of implementation: other than brash security guards, how exactly are they going to be able to monitor this? History tells us that despite prohibition, prohibited activity never truly ceases. What more, over an uncontrolled medium such as the Internet? And in the free-for-all Internet that we have come to know and love today, is this kind of prohibition a violation of our rights to connect as we please and publish what is ours? Has control over what is posted on the Internet grown beyond our reach?
What do you think? Leave your comments below.
One thing’s for sure, if we lived life according to this popular internet meme, then the London 2012 Summer Olympics would be as existent as the Canucks’ Cup run this year (hey, at least I can make jokes about it now.)
Tricia, how did you get so clever?