- The IOC did not issue any new restriction or guidelines to non-rights holders this week.
- The story said it will be forbidden to broadcast Beijing press conferences via the Internet. In fact, the IOC News Access Rules, distributed in August 2007, and the IOC Internet Guidelines for the Written Press and other Non-Rights Holding Media distributed in March 2008 state that...
“Non Rights Holding Broadcast Organisation may broadcast via the Internet all or portions of press conferences that take place in the Main Press Centre, without territorial restrictions, provided there is a delay of at least 30 minutes from the conclusion of the press conference.”
In other words, non-rights holders may film and broadcast press conferences in the MPC, just as they did in Torino and Athens.
- The story said the rules for Beijing represent an increase in restrictions from the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino In reality, the guidelines in place for Beijing are significantly less restrictive for non rights holders than Athens or Torino.
- There is no requirement that non -rights holders to remove Games related content from media sites by August 7, the day before the opening of the Games.
- NBC will not be the single source for digital video for events and athlete interviews from Olympic venues, curtailing any original video offered by other sites like ESPN.com and Yahoo Sports. Rights holding broadcasters in most territories around the world will be broadcasting Olympic content online.
- Online news access rules have also been agreed in Australia and New Zealand which permit news broadcasts by bona fide news organisations of Olympic material – the first such online news access rules to be implemented anywhere in the world, and described as an “historic agreement” by the Australian media.
