Podcast Fresh

The International Olympic Committee recently released their official guidelines that will rule the blogging, podcasting and other user generated media content that may be created by Olympic athletes, media representatives, officials or staff in connection with the 2008 Beijing Olympics which will be held from August 8 to August 24, 2008.

Although the IOC acknowledged that blogging is a form of personal expression  and not journalism, they emphasized that there should be no dissemination of sound, moving images and still pictures of the games or the athletes while inside the Olympic premises.

Of course, this will definitely hurt these people who are planning to blog or create podcast episodes about the 2008 Olympics. We all know that anybody taking part or just witnessing/watching events like this who are also into blogging, podcasting or any form of social broadcasting definitely wanted to share to the world wide web what they have experienced.

Gone were the days when blog is just composed of diary-like entries because today, great blogs are comprised of pictures, video clips or images of a particular topic or events. Reading blogs nowadays can give you the same feeling as if you are also part of the event.

Restrictions like these are really saddening. But what can we do if the International Olympic Committee is keen about corporate censorship and copyright issues? Well, I understand that these guidelines should only applicable to their “Accredited Persons” and so I think they will not bother suing the ordinary citizens or spectators who want to capture the interesting moments and blog or podcast about it. Right?