Monday, April 23, 2012

The Official Blog of the London 2012 Olympics?

I was planning to shut down as far as posting on The Sleaze went for the duration of the Olympics later this year.  As I found out four years ago, the Olympic games is one of those events that hogs the web, traffic-wise, so that nobody else can get a look-in.  Consequently, I figured that it would be pointless publishing new material when they were on this year, as nobody would read it.  However, I've subsequently devised a new strategy:  I'm going to declare this the official blog of the London 2012 Olympics.  Which, of course, means that it will be the only blog that anyone attending the Olympics can read.  That should drive traffic up, with a knock-on effect for The Sleaze.  I did consider trying to make The Sleaze the official wb site of the London 2012 Olympics, but I thought that might be pushing it a bit.  As far as I can see, all that I have to do to justify this as the official Olympic blog is to stick the Olympic and London 2012 symbols on it - after all, that's all that the manufacturers of the official chocolate bars, burgers and colas of the London 2012 Olympics have done.  Apart from that, as far as I can see anyway, these products have absolutely nothing else to do with the event.

OK, I know there's the matter of copyrights as far as the Olympic logos are concerned, but hey, that's just a minor point, isn't it?  I mean, surely the International Olympic Committee (IOC) isn't going to come after the likes of a blog like this, would they?  Actually, they might.  They've gone after a butcher in Weymouth who had the audacity to have a sign on his shop with sausages mimicking the Olympic ring symbol.  In fact, in this crazy wold of corporate branding, where just about anything is for sale, it seems that the IOC have succeeded in copyrighting or registering as trade marks even the words 'London 2012 Olympics'.  You have to pay them royalties to use them in any context that could be considered commercial.  Likewise, those concessions they've sold to the likes of Coca Cola to be 'official' products of the games are legally enforceable.  Trust me, if you've got tickets to, say, the athletics events and you take a can of Pepsi in with you to drink, you could have it confiscated, or even be thrown out of the stadium for infringing Coca Cola's exclusive right to sell soft drinks at the venue!  Perhaps I should follow a similar policy with regard to readers: I don't like Macs, so I'm granting exclusive surfing rights at this blog to people using non-apple products.  So, if you are reading this on an iPad - fuck off!  Or, if you are drinking Fanta whilst reading this post, spit that Nazi drink out now and get a can of Dr Pepper - the official soft drink of Sleaze Diary!

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