Olympic ‘web police’ find few video pirates

Sydney: Pirate broadcasters using the Internet to distribute unlicensed video footage seem to be staying away from the Olympic Games, a senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) official said on Monday.

Marketing director Michael Payne said a mammoth monitoring operation of the worldwide web commissioned by the IOC to track Olympic cover and infringements of broadcast rights had thrown up only about 12 cases since the Sydney Games opened on Friday.

''We've been pleasantly surprised that everyone has respected the guidelines that have been put in place,'' Payne told Reuters.

''There have been maybe a dozen cases since the Games opened and most of them have come from the (broadcast) rights holders. In nearly all cases, it's simply been a matter of confusion and we've sorted it out,'' he said.

Payne said a handful of renegade web broadcasters had been tracked down and had agreed to stop showing footage from the Olympics without the IOC having to resort to legal action.

''To the best of my knowledge, everyone has accepted the friendly call,'' he said.

Internet broadcasts of sporting action at the Games have been effectively banned.

Games broadcasting contracts, which have reaped the IOC 1.3 billion dollars from rights holders in Sydney, prevent companies from sending video or audio signals outside their own country or region.

But the explosion of the Internet, and its global reach, mean anyone with an inexpensive web camera and access to the Internet can send moving images around the world.

The IOC is using the Sydney Games as a test bed for how the Olympic movement could exploit the Internet promotionally and, down the road, commercially through the sale of lucrative rights.



(c) Reuters Limited.