The outlays associated with the Olympics need to be clawed back in every possible way and one of the options is the selling of TV rights. In 2012, NBC paid the International Olympic Committee around $1 billion for broadcasting rights and as a result wanted to protect their investment.

Next year it’s expected that Russia will spend a record $50 billion to put on the Sochi winter games. Local broadcasting deals have already been sewn up by the IOC, with Channel One, RTR, NTV and RIA Novosti securing the key rights and other broadcasters having to settle for putting out a maximum of just six minutes of footage per day.

Needless to say, the Internet isn’t going to care about the IOC’s rules, much less abide by them. There will be hundreds of unauthorized streams and downloadable torrents of the games, from the opening ceremony through to the closing moments – and everything available for capture in between.

The IOC is familiar with the problem. In 2008 the body went as far as writing to the Swedish government to do something about Olympic events on The Pirate Bay. By 2012 illegal live streams caused the biggest problems and this time round in Russia the IOC wants to take an even more aggressive approach.

According to a letter obtained by Russian publication Gazeta, the IOC has written to Russian authorities and Olympic-related bodies demanding an extraordinary effort to rid the Internet of unauthorized Olympic content in record time.

The IOC is calling on the organizing committee for the games to create a “rapid response team” with the authority to remove unauthorized streams, links and other content from the Internet “in a few minutes or hours”, not days as is the current norm.

The adoption of a new anti-piracy law earlier in the year is an inadequate mechanism to protect the Olympics, the IOC said, as responses to copyright holder complaints take too long to process. Instead, they have a better idea.

The IOC appears to be suggesting the creation of a ‘blacklist’ of sites where Olympic events and streams are likely to appear without permission. Once on the list the IOC wants the sites to create tools that will “automatically and immediately carry out the removal of unauthorized content.”

Details are unclear, but the IOC also seems to be seeking government-administered punishment for sites that fail to efficiently remove infringing content.

When asked about the IOC’s demands the Ministry of Communications said they had not received a letter and refused to comment on “rumors”. The Olympic Organizing Committee simply refused to comment.

Communications watchdog Roscomnadzor, who would need to be involved in any initiative of this type, said they had not seen the letter but were willing to look at the proposals.

“If at the highest political and legislative level decisions are taken and Roscomnadzor receives the necessary powers, we will study this,” a spokesperson said.

By law, Roscomnadzor currently has the power to block access to any site or service that fails to remove reported copyrighted content or links within 72 hours. To meet the requirements of the IOC, legal adjustments will almost certainly be required.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, TV-focused torrent site EZTV said that they will be distributing torrents of the Olympics as they have done in the past. In their view the games should be an inspiration to everyone, not simply viewed as a money-making exercise.

“The Olympics is about people from all over the world coming together to show their skills and sportsmanship. And the IOC is purely interested in making as much money from broadcasting as possible,” the site told us.

“We think differently, we believe everyone should be able to see these events freely and inspire future sport heroes!”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Compared to 2004, the availability of Olympic events on BitTorrent has grown significantly, both in quantity and quality. Interestingly, the demand for Olympic torrents is the greatest in China, as 65% of the people who downloaded the Openings Ceremony come from the host country.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is not pleased seeing their shows on BitTorrent sites though. Yesterday they even sent a letter (read it here) to the Swedish Minister of Justice, urging her to take on The Pirate Bay. From the letter, it looks like they have been reading last week’s article. “Our technical advisor Informs us that as many as 1 million copies of the Opening Ceremony have been illegally downloaded worldwide, with the most significant activity taking place through Pirate Bay,” they write.

The IOC claims to have contacted The Pirate Bay with a takedown request, but turned to the Minister when they got no response. The Pirate Bay denies this, and Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde writes: “The phone hasn’t rung. And I guess their e-mail probably got caught in the Chinese firewall, since TPB is blocked there.”

From the letter, it seems that the IOC is predicting that the Closing Ceremony will hit BitTorrent immediately after the fireworks. “We are also gravely concerned about the upcoming Closing Ceremony on August 24, as it is entirely predictable that illegal copies of that event will be immediately made available through the Pirate Bay.” They are right of course, and we’re afraid that the Swedish government can’t do much about it either.

Today, the Minister said in a radio interview that The Pirate Bay is not really good promotion for Sweden (although some would disagree), but that there is indeed little they can do to stop the tracker from hosting torrent files.

It is not clear why the IOC is going after the Pirate Bay, and not any of the other BitTorrent sites. Of course, they are the most outspoken, but the majority of all the Olympic torrents are downloaded from other sites. Most BitTorrent sites do take down torrents when they are asked to, so it might be a good idea to start there….

Below is this week’s chart of the most pirated TV-shows on BitTorrent, the Olympics Opening Ceremony tops the chart again. The data for the TV-torrent chart is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.

Top Downloads August 10 – August 17

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Apparently the IOC has been reading the article we wrote last week, which showed that millions of people are downloading the Olympic opening ceremony on BitTorrent. In the meantime, several other Olympic clips have been posted. Although these are not as popular as the opening ceremony, the gymnastics finals and other events get close to 50.000 downloads.

The press secretary of the Minister of Justice has stated that it is primarily clips from the Opening ceremonies that the IOC wants to stop. The Committee also questions the legal situation and wants to be informed on whether they can take measures themselves to prohibit videos of the Olympics to be shared.

It’s interesting that the IOC chose to contact the Swedish government, instead of The Pirate Bay. They probably realize that sending a takedown notice wouldn’t be that effective. Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak: “I think it’s good that IOC understands that they will get nowhere with sending a legal threat to us. It shows they’re smart and without manners.”

“We were going to ignore the Olympics, but now we’re loading our cannons. Our weapons of mass distribution are pointed towards China.” The first action The Pirate Bay took is creating a new logo for the site, and renaming it to The Beijing Bay. In true Pirate Bay style the front page logo now links to the tag “give us the gold,” Peter said.

The tag refers to the incident with the Swedish wrestler last week, who tossed away his bronze medal after he lost his chance on a Gold medal because of an error made by the jury. Peter told us: “I also hope that the Swedish government will report back to them and tell them to give us the gold that the IOC stole from the Swedish wrestler. And to tell them to not host the Olympics in a country with poor respect for human rights.”

Most BitTorrent sites do take down torrents when they are asked to. However, none of the admins TorrentFreak spoke to received a takedown request so far. Of course, the solution to IOC’s BitTorrent problem is easy. By not televising the closing ceremonies, the IOC not only hinders filesharers, but also makes sure VHS tapers worldwide won’t be able to steal the Olympic spirit. Sounds like a winner.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.