China’s state-run national television broadcaster is teaming with two Internet ventures to deal with droves of online viewers who will be watching the Olympic Games.

China Central Television has announced it is working with the MySpace China social-networking site and online-video site Tudou.com to run an interactive Web site for the August Games.

The CCTV site will offer streaming video broadcasts of events, which will be viewable only in China. The Web site of CCTV, the monopoly national broadcaster, draws relatively little traffic.

There is a conflict of interest in all of this.

Around the world Internet users want to view the Olympics. The Web offers new opportunities for advertising revenue, but also threatens to detract from the lock on Olympic viewers long enjoyed by TV. Selling TV rights is the major source of income for the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC didn’t sell audio and video transmissions rights for Olympics competitions over the Web until 2000.

In many markets like the U.S., the IOC now generally offers the Internet and wireless-broadcast rights for the Games bundled with TV rights, but that is beginning to change. An open tender on the online rights in China last year, which was eventually won by CCTV, was among the first.

CCTV’s Olympics Web site will be a dedicated one within CCTV.com, with a video channel supported by Tudou.com, a three-year-old start-up, and a social-networking section supported by MySpace China, which was launched last April in a joint venture with News Corp., the part of the Murdoch empire which is still interested in China.

The Olympics video site — to go live August 8, the first day of the Games — will include live video, playbacks from the Games, commentary and user-generated content. Users will be able to interact with athletes and coaches using the MySpace China part of the site.

However there may be problems regarding exclusivity.

China’s Internet is home to numerous services that illegally broadcast copyrighted TV shows or movies — even whole TV channels.

Christopher Stokes, the chief executive of United Kingdom-based NetResult, which helps companies enforce sports rights, said, ‘At this stage nobody knows who is going to do the work of making sure the videos are legal.’
Source: Wall Street Journal

Beijing is battling to stamp out illegal sales of 2008 Olympic merchandise on dozens of unauthorized Web sites seeking to cash in on the Chinese public’s Games fervor.

The Beijing Youth Daily , citing an Olympic e-commerce official, said authorities had investigated about 80 commercial and personal Web sites selling fake Olympic merchandise, or lacking licenses to sell the legitimate product.

Xie Funing, a spokesman with the Olympic E-commerce Operation Centre said, ‘The supply channels on these illegal Web sites are chaotic.’

Many Web sites lacked legal proof of the origins of their products, while others had ‘exploited consumers’ urgency to buy merchandise by raising prices and ripping them off.

Beijing Olympic organizers have targeted making $70 million from merchandising from the 2008 Games, from a range of about 4,000 products.

Local media reports of police busting fake Games souvenir makers and street peddlers are common. Law enforcement agencies seized nearly 30,000 finished or half-finished Olympic fakes in the capital earlier this year. Our illustration is, but of course, of genuine Olympics souvenirs being sold.
Source: Reuters

The copyrights of music used for next year’s Beijing Olympic Games will be protected by the organizers, according to a protection plan set out by BOCOG) and the Music Copyright Society of China.

According to the plan, BOCOG will pay for music used at the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, cultural activities at the venues and during the medal presentation ceremonies, if the copyright belongs to others.

It is estimated the Beijing Olympic Games will include nearly 10,000 music works.

Liu Yan, vice-director of the BOCOG legal affairs department, said, ‘BOCOG has made a great effort in the area of intellectual property rights protection and protecting copyright is an important part of this.

‘There will be a large number and variety of musical works used at the Olympic Games, which makes our task more difficult. We have discussed this with the MCSC for nearly a year.’

BOCOG has been commissioning songs for the Olympic Games since 2003 and has designated MCSC to manage copyright issues.
Source: China Daily