The International Olympic Committee is considering lifting its previous blanket ban on athletes blogging, now considering blogs as a “grey area” that warrant further review.

Athletes have previously been banned from blogging under a rule in the Olympic charter which forbids them from partaking in journalism whilst competing at the Olympics, a rule which previously gained attention after the Japanese Olympic Committee forbid its athletes from blogging during the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics.

The SMH reports that IOC Athletes Commission Chairman Sergei Bubka has stated that “In principle, the commission is not against [blogging], but it’s quite a delicate issue that we decided to investigate a little bit more”.

Bubka went on to say that although blogging is a modern way for people to express their opinions, he didn’t believe that athletes should be able to blog without “certain rules”, and that blogs raised questions of privacy and potential conflicts with media and television rights….getting to the real heart of the matter, it’s really about the money.

Originally posted on February 7, 2007 @ 5:13 pm

A resident of the French dependency Martinique has been charged with incitement to murder following posts he made to his blog calling on all gay people to be killed “without exception” along with a number of gay media and government personalities.

The Advocate reports that the man surrendered to Fort-de-France police Friday and was held in custody for two days before being released on bail.

The investigation included the Atlanta Police force, as the man is alleged to have made his posts whilst visiting there.

If convicted he faces up to 5 years in jail and a $58,200 fine.

Originally posted on February 7, 2007 @ 12:24 am

UK outfit SpinVox has announced the launch of “Speak-a-Blog”, a voice to text tool that allows users to blog via voice from a mobile phone.

The service works through using SpinVox’s current voice to text technology, and is currently compatible with Blogger, LiveJournal and Vox, although other blogging platforms may be supported by a “generic” option.

The pitch is to bloggers who don’t have easy access to a computer when they are on the move, and who can’t be bothered trying to type a blog entry into a mobile phone (and I know what they mean by that one).

The service is currently only available to UK residents, however the company is taking registrations of interest from non UK users. A free 1 week trial is available, after that plans start at 3 pounds ($5.90 US) for 10 posts.

(via Tech Digest)

Originally posted on February 6, 2007 @ 7:02 pm

Fox Televisions Stations Inc has announced a deal with Critical Mention Inc to syndicate local content from Fox Network stations to bloggers, for free.

The LA Times reports that content such as a local news story about fire safety would be offered to bloggers and other web site owners, with the bonus of a revenue sharing model that would see some of the profits from advertising either imbedded or with in the story shared with the sites showing it.

The deal is a positive step forward in providing a legal framework for content sharing, at a time when companies such as Viacom are actually going in the opposite direction and threatening fans with DMCA notices, often without grounds.

It’s also a clever move by Fox, extending the reach of local TV station content to a global audience which previously had no access to it.

(via The Blogging Journalist)

 

Tags: Fox, Critical Mention

Originally posted on February 6, 2007 @ 5:28 pm

Japanese companies owned by American firms, including Seven-Eleven, Yahoo! and Amazon are selling racist magazines in Japan.

According to a Bloomberg Report, a magazine titled “Gaihin Hanzai Ura Fairu” or “Secret Foreigner Crimes”, includes a cover in red and black with caricatured images of foreigners grinning manically with glowing red eyes, and includes articles such as “Chase the Iranian!” and as Joi Ito recently noted on his blog, a photo (above right) with the caption “”Oi Nigger! Don’t be touching a Japanese girl’s ass!”.

Japanese firm FamilyMart has stopped selling the magazine following customer complaints, however it is still available for purchase from Amazon.co.jp and Seven and Y Corp, an online bookshop 50.8% owned by Seven-Eleven and 31.3% by Yahoo!.

Tags: Japan

Originally posted on February 7, 2007 @ 12:48 am