Latest Olympics media rules nix GIFs, Vines, and streaming apps

The Olympics Committee has always been restrictive in who can use what footage and when, but a couple new rules introduced for the 2016 games take things even further. The official social media guidelines now prohibit streaming apps, Vines, and even the lowly GIF.

Part of the new restriction appears in the official broadcast rules (PDF), under “Internet and Mobile Platforms.”

…the use of Olympic Material transformed into graphic animated formats such as animated GIFs (i.e. GIFV), GFY, WebM, or short video formats such as Vines and others, is expressly prohibited.

“Olympic Material” is defined as pretty much any images of the games, whatever the source.

Then, in the FAQ for the social and digital media guidelines (PDF):

Broadcasting images via live-streaming applications (e.g. Periscope, Meerkat) is prohibited inside Olympic venues.

The versions of these documents updated for the 2014 games in Sochi don’t have any comparable language, or at least nothing this specific. A possible exception is the“Photographer’s Undertaking,” which states:

The dissemination of moving images or sound  captured  in  an  Olympic venue, through any media, including display on the Internet, Mobile Platform and other interactive media or electronic medium, is strictly prohibited.

But that document isn’t dated, so it’s hard to say when the IOC might have made that language more inclusive.

In general the rule boils down to: Video taken in the Village or at a venue is to be taken by accredited media and used within the broadcast rules, or else kept for personal purposes only. That outlawed streaming in effect, but the new rules make it more clear. GIFs weren’t mentioned, let alone GIFVs, GFYs, or any other new custom looping image format.

Of course, any attempt to crack down on the inevitable meme-making that accompanies such a major media event is doomed to hilarious failure.

Hell, even the pros are likely to get tut-tutted by the IOC for not following every rule to the letter. Just try making sure your broadcast, front page, segment, vlog, or whatever meets all the restrictions set out here.

Google wins copyright battle over books

The US Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Google in its 11-year legal battle with an authors group.

The Court said it would not hear an appeal from the Authors Guild, which claimed Google breached copyright laws by scanning books without permission.

The technology giant began the process in 2004, so it could include extracts in a searchable database, and it was sued by the Authors Guild in 2005.

The Supreme Court's judgement is the final ruling on the matter.

Fair use

Google's database of books lets people search through millions of titles and read passages and selected pages from them.

While some of the books in the database are old titles that are no longer protected by copyright, millions are more recent publications.

The Authors Guild had argued that the project undermined authors' ability to make money from their work.

Google said its database was a "fair use" of protected works, describing it as "a card catalogue for the digital age".

The firm could have faced billions of dollars in damages claims from authors if it had lost the case.

The Authors Guild said it was "disappointed" that the Supreme Court would not hear its appeal.

The organisation's president Roxana Robinson said: "We believed then and we believe now that authors should be compensated when their work is copied for commercial purposes".

A Google spokeswoman said: "We are grateful that the court has agreed to uphold the decision of the Second Circuit which concluded that Google Books is transformative and consistent with copyright law."