The US Olympic Committee: The Official Business Is Not Allowed To Issue Olympic Games Online.

According to common sense, there are scale discussions on social networks.

The topic is never obstructed.

But recently, for some sponsors, the use of tags such as "#Rio2016" and "#TeamUSA" on Twitter has become taboo.

This is the case.

In recent weeks, unofficial sponsors from the United States have received a letter from the US Olympic Committee.

The purpose of this letter is to let them pay attention to their unofficial business identity, and not to make use of the Olympic Games topic on the social network to make profits for themselves.

We all know this truth.

In order to safeguard the business interests of the official business, it is also necessary to make some reminders to the unofficial businessmen.

The problem is that these reminders are not so benign.

Let us first take a look at the most demanding requirement mentioned in the letter, which is referred to above in the specification of Twitter's speech: "the unofficial business is not allowed to release Olympic Games related content on its social media account, including the use of labels containing the registered trademarks of the US Olympic Committee, such as #Rio2016 or #TeamUSA".

Seriously, according to the Olympic Committee of the United States, if the unofficial businessmen used these labels carelessly, they would be infringed according to the provisions of the trademark law in the intellectual property law.

However, this is not a simple way to avoid the two labels.

In order to fully protect the sponsorship of the official business, the US Olympic Committee published a document on its official website, detailing the banned words of non-governmental business on the social network.

The first group of banned words is Olympic Committee slogan "Olympic Games".

"The word" can not be mentioned "can not be mentioned with the theme slogan of the Rio Olympic Games and the plation text of any language.

The second group of banned vocabularies is related to Olympic Games.

What this list wants to say is that none of the words that are closely related to the Olympic Games, including "2016", "Summer" (summer), and "Victory" (victory), can not be mentioned.

Of course, the Olympic Committee of the United States has added a sentence of "depending on the specific context" before the list of banned vocabularies.

But during the four year Olympic Games, do not mention these words does not mean that they can not cheer for their athletes, can not participate in heated discussions about Olympic topics and share outstanding performance of their athletes?

Once these Regulations are issued, it is impossible for the American people to protest.

After all, freedom of speech is a basic human right protected by the constitution of the United States.

The little brother raised a serious question about the legality of the rules put forward by the US Olympic Committee: "when is a label even related to intellectual property?!"

Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University in the US, told the BBC in an interview that the practice of the US Olympic Committee has gone beyond the limits prescribed by law, and his characterization of this behavior is "bullying".

The Olympic Committee of the United States expressed no regard for these doubts. They claimed that it was based on the provisions of the fortieth Olympic (Charter Rule) issued by the International Olympic Committee (Rule).

{page_break}

This regulation prohibits athletes, coaches and officials involved in the Rio Olympic Games strictly. During the Olympic Games and before and after the Olympic Games (designated by the US Olympic Committee from July 27, 2016 to August 24), there is any hint that they have a cooperative relationship with the unofficial business.

Their names, pictures, and competition results can not be used for commercial purposes by unofficial sponsors.

The US Olympic Committee did a very conservative interpretation of the definition of "commercial use".

In the "fortieth guidelines" (Rule 40 Guidelines) released on its official website, the US Olympic Committee said that any official sponsor's use of Olympic related topics and pictures could easily form a hint that they wanted to advertise.

Therefore, the farce that prohibits the use of the prescribed vocabulary and prohibits the forwarding of relevant information and pictures is staged.

Then, one may ask, how many sponsors will this farce affect? Here, perhaps we can only tell you what will not be banned.

The US Olympic Committee has listed a sponsor list on its official website.

They identified 39 domestic and foreign sponsors, and the more popular brands are Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Samsung, Panasonic, Procter & Gamble, Nike and BMW.

Such as Adidas and new hundred Lun are popular among the public.

It is not included in this list.

This means that if athletes wear their sports apparel to participate in the competition, they must hide the trademark of the brand when taking photos or videos.

Otherwise, it will unfortunately step on the infringing areas under the provisions of article 40.

As a result, some people were unlucky enough to play in the mine clearance game.

Oiselle, a sporting goods company based in Seattle, sent a photo on its official Twitter account a few weeks ago.

The photo is an excited American runner Kate Grace, who has just learned that she will represent the US national team in the women's 800 meter race at Rio Olympic Games.

It was a pleasant thing to do, but at that time, Kate was wearing the clothes sponsored by Oiselle, and revealed the logo.

So Oiselle soon received the mail from the US Olympic Committee.

Finally, Oiselle had to do fuzzification of the trademark in the picture.

So, what kind of correct attitude should we take to deal with the overlord clause of the US Olympic Committee? If it is a racket, maybe we can learn to learn the US men's basketball team.

At the beginning of 7, the United States men's basketball team released an official photo.

In this photo, the players unanimously turn to the left side of the photo so as not to allow the unofficial sports brand sponsor's trademark to appear, while the coach sitting on the side has his heart to stretch out his left foot to block the Adidas trademark on the Dwight shoe.

But none of this is the funniest thing.

If the "forbidden words" issued by the US Olympic Committee in 2016 violated the basic human rights of the people, then in the 2012 London Olympic Games, another provision issued by the Olympic Organizing Committee violated the basic right of existence of the people.

At that time, in order to keep up with the official sponsorship of McDonald's, the hard working staff at the opening and closing ceremonies of the London Olympic Games were prohibited from buying fries from other manufacturers.

Of course, there are very lucky individual food suppliers who are allowed to sell fish and chips packages to hungry staff, but if these suppliers dare to sell fries to these employees alone, their stalls will be withdrawn.

It seems that four years later, the Olympic Committee has not made much progress.

What is the proper way to safeguard the rights and interests of the official businessmen? Before making trivial rules, the officials of the Olympic Committee may have to turn over the intellectual property law.