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As has been the case in past years, the International Olympic Committee has been particularly aggressive in getting content wiped off YouTube and social media platforms during the Olympics in Italy.
“We have a monitoring system in place to protect our media rights holders,” an IOC spokesperson told Front Office Sports on Wednesday.
An NBC Sports spokesperson declined to comment.
Last year, NBC reached a $3 billion deal to air the Olympics in 2034 and 2036; this followed a $7.75 billion pact that the two sides reached in 2014 for the games to air on NBC from 2021-32.
The IOC is also seeking to protect the exclusivity for its other global rightsholders. Many sports leagues and networks see social media as the next frontier of where to reach audiences, but it’s clear based on its social media strategy that the Olympics and its broadcasters want to maximize its viewership through TV and direct streaming.
Nevertheless, the copyright strikes have gone to some extreme lengths. One social media user took a video of his dog being locked in on the Olympics airing on TV and the post was taken down by Twitter/X. Another person posted a screenshot showing that it was impossible to share content from the official Olympic account on TikTok.
“It’s an automated system—it’s not manual,” the IOC spokesperson said. “So many people post videos, to monitor all of it you can’t just have people doing that. The notification goes out [to the platforms] and from there the system is in place.”
Some entities have made humorous workaround attempts. The official NHL account made “highlights” videos using Microsoft Paint. Several NHL teams did the same when their players had big moments.
There is a grey area when it comes to “fair use” laws where Americans are allowed to use copyrighted content without permission in the service of news reporting. For example, videos of Israeli Olympians getting booed, which got taken down off YouTube and social media platforms, could be newsworthy in this sense.
Users who have their content taken down must appeal to the platforms themselves as opposed to the IOC.
It isn’t just social media where copyright issues have reared their heads at the Olympics. At least five figure skaters had issues about getting their preferred music cleared for their routines and had to adapt on the fly.
