Olympics to Have Live Online Coverage, But Not For Americans 438
Rytsarsky writes "According to this AP story (mirror), live video from the Olympics will be viewable online. However, 'the footage will be highly restricted to protect lucrative broadcast contracts, which are sold by territory - $793 million paid by NBC alone. Web sites must employ technology to block viewers from outside their home countries, so U.S. Web surfers won't benefit from the BBC's live coverage. They'll have to settle for highlights posted after NBC broadcasts, which are already largely tape-delayed.'" Interestingly, this AP wire story was picked up by CNN.com (it was at this URL and this URL), ran for a few hours, and now has been removed - I guess CNN didn't think it was newsworthy. *shrug*
Live For Americans with Tivo (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Live For Americans with Tivo (Score:4, Informative)
Its fucking annoying.
I could not watch Tae Kwon Do last year because of this Bullshit.
WTF are the olympics about, profit?
Damn the IOC, and the money hearders.
I dont have such friends in foreign countries, except perhaps Canada, and i just have to be lucky to see it on Canadian channels...
ASS HOLES!
Re:Live For Americans with Tivo (Score:4, Informative)
OK, so the BBC's output is heavily UK biased but that is understandable and expected. But,the BBC covered minority sports as well as the main ones. The coverage went out over two channels. There were hundreds of hours of LIVE coverage. (Almost ALL the US coverage was from tape and heavily edited.) How many of you from the US realise that there are eighteen hours a day of action from the games almost every day?
Was I glad to get back to the UK for the last three days of competition? Oh yes!
I guess CNN didn't think it was newsworthy. (Score:4, Funny)
More likely NBC didn't want people to know.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean seriously, all you need is another geek in another country to put up a proxy server on a high speed connection and we have video. Or just stream it on-line themselves with some of the P2P streams out there.
Re:Thank the Bush administration (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps you meant 'glasnost'?
Re:Does anyone in the USA... (Score:4, Interesting)
I, however, find it incredible that NBC would offer "1,210 hours of coverage spread across NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, USA, Telemundo and a high-definition channel" and none of it live. All I'm going to see is whatever bits of the highlights-they-deign-offer-us-in-lieu-of-full-cov erage [broken /. lameness filter turned 'coverage' into 'cov erage'] that happen to be on as I'm surfing past NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, and USA on my way to something worth watching [discovery.com] (we don't get Telemundo or any high-def channels).
NBC offers the worst sports coverage of any American network, so naturally they get the Olympics. The fact that the IOC cares more about the $$$ than the quality of the coverage speaks volumes about the true nature of the Olympics. If I wanted delayed coverage I'd read about it in tomorrow's newspaper, which is exactly what I will do for the few sports I care about. And I'll bet I get the results from the newspapers before NBC shows us the highlights.
Re:Does anyone in the USA... (Score:4, Funny)
THINK OF THE CHILDREN !
hah!
This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:3, Funny)
Shhh, you're going to hurt NBC's feelings.
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:2, Informative)
I had a user who was banned and tried using proxies for IE and it still would not let him connect =)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:5, Informative)
If the proxy is slow, use another one. I do it all the time.
My home country's laws about alocohol advertising used to require advertisers to block all access to websites advertising alcoholic products produced in my country to the residents of the country. All foreigners could access the sites all they could. It really didn't take long to find an open proxy outside the borders to check out what was on the site (wasn't worth the effort).
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:4, Informative)
IRC servers check to see whether your connection is from an open proxy by connecting to it/portscanning; by definition IRC connections don't contain HTTP headers that reveal the originating IP address.
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:3, Informative)
Once you connect to a modern IRC network, the IP you're using will be portscanned. If it finds any services listening on known proxy ports (i.e. open proxies) the IRC server won't let you connect because you may be using an open proxy.
(If you'r
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:2)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:3, Informative)
Anytime I couldn't get to a site I needed to (at one point, they blocked every commerce site out there, including book stores I was using to buy books I needed for work), I would just point my browser to one of the foreign proxies.
Worked for all the IM clients as well. US proxy blocked all IM traffic, the foreign ones di
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:2)
Poor proxy...
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:2)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:3)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:3, Informative)
That's because they are all loaded down with spam transmision.
No tape delay on CBC (Score:5, Informative)
Re:..but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is what Open Proxies are for (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is how it was untill things got so out of hand financially that there was a simple choice between commercializing it or not having it happen at all.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with your sentiment, but who is going to pay
Should this be YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
These ad guys go to far, and, of course, the media will cover up stuff like that. Free press my ass.
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing as how they're paying the bills...
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:4, Interesting)
Seeing as how they're paying the bills...
Well, if that's your attitude, don't come complaining about any perceived "conservative" or "liberal" bias in the media. Unless you're the advertiser paying said media to be biased the way you tell them to be, of course.
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't complain about it, though I both agree and disagree. I think you're right, but the whole point of news reporting is to be fair and unbiased.
Money corrupts. Can't help that.
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens inbetween commercials only exists to get you to turn to their channel... after all thats why (1) products like TIVO scare the crap [marketingvox.com] out of them for its ability to hide commercials, and (2) product placement [howstuffworks.com] in the shows themselves allows commercial time to blend with content time. Hell, CBS was running programs [themediadrop.com] about books that the parent company published [thatliberalmedia.com], and calling it news... And after all, why are the news readers so pretty [go.com]... so you'll tune in [nakednews.com].
This is also why I believe news reporters tend to become politically biased over time towards their local markets... it is their job to retain viewers/customers, and so you preach to your local markets. The political landscape [outsidethebeltway.com] is strongly correllated with urban concentrations, as are the "big" markets. The "old" big 3 broadcast media meets the needs of the cities, with its liberal leanings. Those living away from urban areas have to rely on cable and satelite, which "new" big media promptly cornered the market, and tilted their content towards their libertarian/conservative consumers. The people like like Jennings's leanings will tend to flip on ABC, and ABC gets viewers to watch its commercials, and those of the other leanings will flip on Fox, and Fox gets viewers for its commercials. Companies win, educating citizens loses.
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, unless their burning capital, the customers are the ones really paying the bills.
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:3, Funny)
So basically, you're paying to the corporations so they can stop you from accessing the things you want without paying them more. And the same with your government (DMCA, and those anti-P2P laws we all know will pass sooner or later).
I see Americans are honoring the heritage of robber barons :).
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:3, Informative)
Couple of years ago there was quite a scandal, when Polsat (commercial TV in Poland) absurdely expensive exclusive rights for FIFA World Cup and decided they will air the coverage only on their encrypted, subscription-only digital satelite platform. They imagined World Cup as a huge drive to sell subscriptions.
Among the arguments why this is bad was one fact: in football (or should I say soccer?) ov
I pay the bills, and don't want them mucking it up (Score:3, Insightful)
*I* pay the bills, monthly through my cable channel. If that's not enough to support the networks, I'd vastly prefer that they cut out ads and increase prices, giving me the option to simply pay or go without. That the ad companies hand money to the networks does not give them the moral high ground; they're not doing us any favors, they're leeching off of society. The advertisers vastly prefer the status quo, and are terrified of the day when they won't be give
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:3, Informative)
Television networks like NBC make money from advertisers, remember?
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:2, Insightful)
What? It's the video stream from a different country, not the US, not protected/regulated by any rules/laws/etc from our country. I'm sure there are are many broadcasts that we have had in the US that we have not necessarily shared with other countries. Almost sounds like it's cheap of our broadcasting companies to not pay into such coverage. This sounds like a stupid case of "poor us" for the US, when really, there are lots of other countries out there not getting this footage, let alo
Re:Should this be YRO? (Score:4, Interesting)
Worldwide outlets that carry the Olympics then are bound in their contracts to honor the exclusivity of other contracts, including NBC's for the US. So they have to try to block access for US "viewers." Sure ad revenue is the reason for the exclusive contracts, but it's the networks and the IOC (or whoever sells the broadcast rights) that are trying to control internet access.
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then you mention "free press" which is irrelevant, because this isn't the government suppressing anything.
What you think you have rights to (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that our airwaves use to broadcast television?
MLB.com (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of watching it on the web is that I don't have a TV available, so I'm willing to put up with the crappy quality, high bandwidth, etc. of an Internet broadcast.
If I had a TV, I'd watch that instead. Blackouts are meant to help ticket sales, or to push people into watching the TV station that's paying for the rights. But if TV isn't an option, then I go for radio or internet.
Re:MLB.com (Score:4, Funny)
Where do I return my geek card?
Re:MLB.com (Score:5, Funny)
You can give it--as well as all the other contents of your wallet--to me, the Wallet Inspector.
Re:MLB.com (Score:5, Interesting)
Nah, I just thought you were getting gradually more and more agitated in your post. I was waiting for the all caps to break out at any moment.
I share in your disapproval of blackout restrictions for MLB.TV. If it's being broadcast on television, what difference does it make what medium I choose to watch it on?
If I watch a game on FOX (which I can pick up on a TV antenna for FREE) or on my computer (a service which I pay for), I'm going to be seeing the exact same content - INCLUDING the commercials. What does FOX have to lose by having the game rebroadcast over the Internet?
Re:MLB.com (Score:2)
1)They had no problem charging my card for the game
2)They advertise it as, watch on the road... limey bastards.
Re:MLB.com (Score:2)
Awesome.
The billing address zip code doesn't make sense, because of the reason you described. So their market is then pared down to those fans that live in areas outside of where the TV broadcasts hit. Which is likely a smaller number than they'd like. I'm guessing it's a losing venture for them. Maybe they're just willing to take a hit for a while and use it as
torrents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:torrents? (Score:2, Funny)
certainly give us sweaty athletes..nothing is below them
Re:torrents? (Score:2)
It's what's being discussed here, or?
Say Hello to Mr Anonymous Proxy Server (Score:3, Funny)
dumb (Score:2)
Why the different "not found" pages (Score:2)
Deep Throat said ... (Score:5, Interesting)
At least since Los Angeles in 1984 (which is as long as I've been following it), it hasn't been about sport or competition or peace.
It's been about bribery, profits, and raking in the dough.
So does any of this surprise us?
Re:Deep Throat said ... (Score:5, Informative)
It has always been so since the begining
español [rd.com]
English [rd-india.com]
All the myths around Olympics ("to win is not important", "amateurs only", "the torch", "the olympic spirit") was invented by Pierre de Coubertin who founded the modern Olympic Games
Re:Deep Throat said ... (Score:2)
No but it should disgust us. US$793M for rights to broadcast seems a bit rediculous.
However this has been the way it has always been. There is a nice artical in Smithsonian [si.edu]this month about how the ancient Greeks actually did it and there was pleanty of bribery, profits, and raking in the dough back then too.
It's all about the money... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's all about the money... (Score:2)
Doping has been big news in swimming. The Germans in the 1980s, the Chinese women in the 1990s, and then various random samplings of high-level atheletes that gained there status through the use of designer steroids and whiskey in their piss.
Re:It's all about the money... (Score:2)
Really? (Score:2)
Re:It's all about the money... (Score:3, Interesting)
Y'know, British folks are paying for the BBC website through our (all-but-) mandatory TV license fee, I don't really see why this should be opened up to people in other countries.
If you want TV without ads, move to the UK and pay your £116 (about $180 I guess) a year for it, otherwise stick with the service you get in the US, and don't expect the 60 million folks in the UK to pay for a service for 300 million folks in the US.
Work Around? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Work Around? (Score:3, Informative)
They are postal codes, and they are a completely different formatting than the US zip.
1250 hours of coverage? I don't need the net. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a Visa cardholder? You're out of luck.
Interesting but not surprising. I'm surprised you don't have to prove you were one of the 8% of the population that ate at McDonalds that day...
Some European broadcasters are limiting video to high-speed, broadband customers only, seeking to keep foreigners from connecting via international phone calls.
Oh fuck you, give me a break, no one is going to download Olympics video over dialup via an international call. It's just not worth it. Perhaps AmEx would love for you to pay for that call on their card?
"Of course you get frustrated you can't do everything you want, but compared to four years ago, this is incredibly much better," said Kristian Elster, who works on the Web site for Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
Maybe in Norway you can't see the shit on TV. NBC comes over the air here and you see a ton of stuff. Most of the really boring shit is on during the day and they play the important races at prime time (live or not). Watching video via the net doesn't impress me.
Fans are the ultimate winners, Joerg said. Even with some 12,000 hours of total TV coverage across Europe, "you cannot cover all," he said. "Broadband and mobile technology can complement the traditional television coverage."
No you can't and most of it sucks anyway. What's shown is generally the important/good stuff. At least in my experience. 1250 hours of coverage is a lot.
Re:1250 hours of coverage? I don't need the net. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't give a damn about track and field, but just TRY to watch a reasonable amount of coverage for cycling.
Same with the winter olympics. They should change it to the "Figure Skating and Snow Skiing World Championships", because that's all you ever see. More bobsled. More luge. More biathlon.
Re:1250 hours of coverage? I don't need the net. (Score:5, Insightful)
I will grant that I really do not want to see each elimination heat of the 1600 meter relay. I suspect that watching a bunch of guys and galls standing and shooting at targets for hours at a time would probably get old as well. (For a lot of people anyway.)
What gets really old for me however is watching 2 hours of interviews, "background" material, someone pacing an athlete during his or her training in the years before while some narrator discloses how this athlete fought tooth and nail from some long ago disaster. All leading up to a 10 minute tape delayed presentation of the athlete finishing whatever event he or she was a part of, with a 5 minute tape delayed award ceremony with the (you probably never heard of this person more than 3 hours ago) now celebrity athlete being one of the three medalion winners (or part of one of the teams on the stairs.)
Of course that two hours of 'history' is part of four hours of time, the other half of the time being spent providing ad space for the Olympic sponsors. After the half hour spent for the "main event" (10 min of event, 5 min of Awards, 15 min of ads) you might get part of a half hour to wrapup that 'highlights' some of the other events that happened that day, mostly to explain how whichever US athlete was in the event did that day. (But only if they came in close to or as a medalist, and only if whatever producer happens to be running the show that night thinks the event might interest someone with his or her own narrow view of what the Olympics should be.)
1250 'hours' of 'coverage' is probably Wonderful TV, but what the US population sees is hardly coverage of the Olympics.
Then again, that's my opinion.
-Rusty
Re:1250 hours of coverage? I don't need the net. (Score:4, Funny)
Free means that you can leave this country at your own will to watch them live in Athens.
Thieves and Liars (Score:4, Insightful)
Usually I support the pirates and get pretty beat up around here.
Now I'm looking at a full page of posts detailing how to infringe on these distribution rights.
Is this a major flip-flop or are these posters different from the usual crowd around here?
stick it to the man!
free the bits!
Re:Thieves and Liars (Score:2)
Re:Thieves and Liars (Score:3, Funny)
*note sarcasim here
Re:Thieves and Liars (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdot is anything but liberal, as you'd know if you ever read any of the gun control arguments that seem to break out in completely unrelated threads [slashdot.org].
Slashdot users are generally libertarian. Which is a completely different thing from "liberal". Libertarians believe government has no place whatsoever in their lives, which is why you get stories like Google's mismanagement of their IPO listed under the "your rights online" tag. This is pretty much the exact opposite of what liberals believe. If anything, libertarians lean a lot more towards the conserative side, since both supposedly believe in smaller government (though in practice, most so-called "conservatives" only believe in smaller government in areas where it suits them - not, for example, in a smaller military or in cuts to social security).
Now, I am not a libertarian, I am a liberal (and btw, we liberals have nothing against big business, just big business that breaks the law, ie. Microsoft or Enron). Obviously, not all Slashdot users are the same. But the general gist of things here is usually that all government meddling in technology is bad, which explains the calls of "censorship" in this thread (even though government is not even involved) or the complaints about "rights" being infringed (as if watching TV is a "right", which implies that it's either something you're born with [as in an "inalienable" right] or it's something written into law, or both). As a liberal, I often feel extremely out of place here in actually not always arguing against government regulation of various things if it makes sense - I evaluate everything on a case by case basis. But what business does, as long as they're not breaking any laws, is business.
I personally think this whole Olympics thing is pretty damn stupid from a business standpoint, and not at all helpful to the Olympics as a whole (interest in the Olympics in the US has been dropping since the 1980's, partly because of the shoddy live TV coverage). But my "rights" are not being trampled on here; just the long-term viability of the Olympics themselves. Once these games are over, I expect to once again see a lot of bitching about the poor TV coverage, a lot of bitching by NBC about the low ratings and a lot of bitching by the Olympic committee about the lack of interest. If you ask me, none of them have anybody to blame but themselves.
crappy American coverage (Score:2)
I think I speak for all... (Score:2)
Go slashdot! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Go slashdot! (Score:5, Funny)
This just in, I-90 has been slashdotted!
For a fee... (Score:2)
I'll set up a TCP redirection process on my servers ;)
If you'd read the article (Score:2)
Still, the Olympics have been boring as hell since 84. Plus, considering the Balco (sp?) steroid scandal and how the USOC is reacting to it, it's hard to trust that the athletes aren't all hopped up anyhow.
proxies w/o PROXY_FOR support (Score:5, Interesting)
Tor and a nation-free Internet (Score:2)
Tunnels and Competition.... What a mess... (Score:2)
Funny (Score:4, Insightful)
Your own fault for having that revolution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Your own fault for having that revolution (Score:3, Interesting)
We [cia.gov] didn't have a revolution, but still have at least the promise of decent Olympics coverage [www.cbc.ca]. That's the theory, anyway: the last couple of times have been dominated by talking heads, cutesy "background" spots (especially the Sydney Olympics), and general chatter about almost everything but sports.
They also had a nasty habit of telling us that Canadians placed 5th, 10th and 21st, but never told who actually won.
...laura
Re:Your own fault for having that revolution (Score:3, Interesting)
Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...
Re:Your own fault for having that revolution (Score:3, Funny)
Why should they? Those furriners shouldn't have won anyways! Next time, they ought to change the rules to make sure a US'ian wins!
At least, that's how NBC sees it.
This is really scary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when does a CNN story VANISH?
I hate to put on the tinfoil hat, but CNN is a division of Time/Warner, one of the monstrously-huge media entities trying to get so-called "intellectual property" the same status as "real estate" - they want a piece of "intellectual property" to be eternal, like land, where it can be kept - and milked - forever, without any expiration.
They clearly want to profit forever off all works that are created, and they want to use technology to do it, and they want to force the use of technology through legal means. In short, they want to sell you a license to think.
Now, let's look at CNN: this is a gigantic news organization that is the main source of news for millions of Americans that seems to have yanked a relatively innoculous story about "intellectual property."
I've heard of CNN changing stories, and moving them, but I've never seen once totally removed - and a search of CNN for keywords in the original AP article finds nothing.
It is very clear that the MPAA, RIAA and other gigantic entities that want much more restrictive laws on copyright and viewing licenses would prefer to have these laws passed without reference to the American public.
They don't want people to know what they are doing until it is done.
Now, we have a relatively tame story about Olympics, but just interesting enough to perhaps make Joe Six-Pack think for a moment, "Hey, why to those Frogs and Brits get to see stuff that I have to pay for?"
Is it possible that this is why the story was removed?
Could CNN be filtering news that could irritate the American masses into seeing that the Fair Use Doctrine, Limited Copyrights and a cornucopia of other rights currently enjoyed by Americans are slipping away?
That scares me.
CNN Owns the Page (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a danger of online media, its a bit harder to pull a story out of a newspaper after its in the subscribers hands..
Re:CNN Owns the Page (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is really scary... (Score:3, Interesting)
In case you wondered if this has been made up, Google News [google.com] still lists one of the CNN URL on top of news stories with keywords "olympics online".
Here is what I don't understand (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a little upset that the olympics is now becoming a pay per view type event with exclusive deals to big companies to distribute. This was once an event that unified the world in healthy competition, all in good fun. Now it's gone corporate and is gouging people.
I'll admit I could care less about a lot of the events, but that's possibly just because I never get to see them and appreciate them. As it is, I never know what events are going on or when. The athletes I don't know by name etc etc.
The olympics IMHO has a PR problem. They are failing to reach younger folks who would normally be the ones to care about this and are therefore losing ground to the X Games and similar events. I don't even know anyone these days that gives a shit about the olympics. Most people I talk to about it just shrug and forget it.
Off Shore Proxies (Score:3, Interesting)
They do this now with races, they black out the local area and penalize the locals that dont get to go... but let everyone else in the world see what is happening..
Hooray! (Score:4, Interesting)
2: I think the Olympics are a tedious pile of shite, so I don't have to!
(Wait, that means the BBC has blown an ungodly amount of money on something I have no interest in, and it'll be sport, sport, sport all summer long... So, actually, no changes there. Carry on!)
You have to be kidding me (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news.. clothing bans, blog bans, Google (Score:4, Interesting)
The Olympic Games are off-limits to those wearing clothing clearly sporting logos or slogans of companies who are direct competitors of companies sponsoring The Olympic Games.
This is a measure mostly aimed towards preventing a group of people wearing shirts that would spell out a company name which would be clearly visible in any televised broadcast, but e.g. a cap sporting Pepsi, when Coca~Cola is the sponsor, would be forbidden as well. Or vice-versa, can't say I care which one's sponsoring
In additional news, athletes are once again told not to write about the olympics online. This is the same measure taken last time around in Australia - though not enforced too strictly.
And in entirely unrelated news, but on a level of "Boohoo - us poor Americans"
Boohoo, us poor rest-of-the-worlders - we can't bid on Google IPO stock
Global company - global search engine - Americans First (Only?)
I don't watch the Olympics anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this really a big deal? (Score:3, Informative)
Folks who work regular hours, have families, etc. will only be able to appreciate video from the Olympics well after the events are over.
Unless I'm missing something, those folks outnumber night shift workers, kids with nothing better to do, and (gasp) geeks who decide not to visit the 'big room' because it's too bright. And by a wide margin.
Re:Olympic what ? (Score:2)
Re:Olympic what ? (Score:2)
Boycott! (Score:3, Interesting)
But is it really that important?
I look at it this way... if the people who run the olympics are so deeply in corperate broadcasters pcokets that they are willing to put up restrictions like this... do I even want to give them the benefit of watching?
I think not. I thought it was bad enough when I realised how political the whole Olympic Games were. Now that it seems to be going more and more corperate, its finnaly the last straw.
I will not be watching a single Olympic event, on t
Criticizing Bush is not "bashing America" (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm curious. What are you thinking of? I've seen relatively little bashing of America by the American media. Criticism of Bush, sure, but he's hardly America.
If I criticize one of my town official's actions, am I bashing my town?