Olympic brand protection again

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Cash for branding Terribly sorry to be banging on about the olympics again but Al Jahom has revealed that the festering pustulance on the face of free speech don’t want us linking to them in uncomplimentary terms. To quote what they’d like to impose:
“no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner.”
Oh and it must also be in text only so this sort of thing is probably right out:
London 2012 olympics festering cock monkeys

The paranoid insanity of these olympics is a matter of international derision with sites like Cracked picking on on the “Creepy things London did to prepare for the Olympics. Thankfully there are Official protesters to help raise awareness of these matters. Having recently tried to get spreadshirt to print some humorous and satirical, and thus I believe quite legal, t-shirts. I discovered just how restrictive the regulations actually are, and I really can’t blame Spreadshirt for taking this approach, but here’s what they said when I asked them what the problem was with my designs (emphasis mine):
“Hello anonymong,

Many thanks for your email.

Unfortunately we are not allowed to print anything regarding olympia.
The IOC has several trademarks published and some designs are prohibited by law.

We are not allowed to print parodies or elements using the rings, the logo, several words like
‘london 2012’ so on.
Using trademark material can incur severe monetary penalties. This is something we would like
to prevent by this precautionary measure.
We apologise for any inconvenience.

For further questions please don’t hesitate to contact me again.

Kind regards

NAME
Spreadshirt Legal Service”

Like I say I don’t blame them at all, but I’d note that usually they aren’t nearly so draconian and just ask you to confirm that you really really do have the rights to the design, and there are certainly enough parodies and spoofs of large brands for sale there. I shall be trying again of course with a new version:
Brand awareness take 2

So we’ll see how that goes, and in case it doesn’t go well there’s a zip file of full sized version of both designs for anyones use. Also just in case you fancy joining in the fun with tweaking the incompetent misbegotten spawn of mangy camels here’s a free to download copy of the London 2012 font.

Enjoy.

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A lasting legacy for local communities

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The Olympic legacy will be lasting I know more Olympic shite, I really should change topic, but inspired by other peoples graphics I thought I’d exercise my piss poor graphics skills. Especially having read about the lasting sports legacy being left in hackney with existing sports facilities and wildlife habitat destroyed for good. That’s even before you consider if the Olympic body will return the pitches under the temporary car park to anything like they’re previous state. To keep track of just what the legacy will be, and lets see how far off the mark my graphic is there’s Games Monitor.

Oh and for the record the graphic isn’t a threat, it’s a joke, humour, satire, not to be taken seriously. If you’re distressed by it please feel free to piss off and make yourself a nice cup of tea.

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More Olympic nonsense

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Words the olympics dont like you usingI wasn’t going to write another article about the Olympics so soon honest I wasn’t and hopefully when they actually begin I’ll shut up about them. However it’s hard to keep quiet when it’s being proposed that there will be special Olympic Offences because it’s extra bad if you break the law in a way that disrupts the Olympics. So bad in fact that the supposedly neutral CPS “may appeal over sentences for Olympic-related offences if it felt they were too lenient.” Which I think most of us these days would read as “will appeal”.

Of course they don’t need anyone to disrupt the games to cause trouble when they’re quite capable of screwing it up unaided. Thankfully there is 2012disasters to keep track of all the problems for us (hat tip lid on a scream).

As a public spirited sort of chaps Katabasis and I thought we might toddle along to take a gander at the olympic venues, and help make everyone aware of the words they shouldn’t be using. Sadly Spreadshirt seem a bit dubious about print the t-shirts we plan to wear (so they may vanish). Not sure just when we’ll go for our little stroll but if you fancy joining us watch this space and feel free to wear suitably branded clothing just to see what happens. This is purely in a spirit of being educational and informative after all it’s so complex it needs a flow chart.

How to decide if you've said a bad thing

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