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Monday, October 8, 2007

Olympics Organisers Ban Olympics

In the farce that is the London Olympics 2012, one truth remains self evident; namely that the Olympics are not about sport, but about money.

Nothing demonstrates this point more clearly than the fuss that the London Olympics organisers have caused over a science fiction book by Robert Ronson.

Mr Ronson's crime?

The title he used for his book was "Olympic Mind Games".

The "good people" of the London Olympics decided that this could be viewed as a breach of copyright. In order to squeeze every last drop of money out of the games words such as "Olympics" and "2012" are copyrighted. Therefore, in theory, this site breaches also the copyright, as it liberally uses the word "Olympics".

The organising committee were so angst ridden about Mr Ronson's book, that they sent him an email asking that he desist from using the word "Olympic" and expressions such as "London 2012, or 2012 etc" in the title.

Seemingly the committee has the power to do so under statutes passed in 1995 and 2006. Nonetheless some common sense prevailed in the minds of the Olympic organisers as Ronson refused to kowtow, doubtless fearful of looking totally ridiculous, they have decided that it would be "disproportionate" to prosecute.

It is of course quite ridiculous to attempt to ban the use of words that are listed in dictionaries. Not that it stopped "Big Brother" from doing just that in Orwell's "1984".

Here is a list of banned words for you to savour:

-Olympics
-Olympic
-2012
-London 2012

Enjoy them whist you can, the thought police will be coming soon to stop you reading them; unless of course a nice fat fee has been paid first!

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