International Olympic Committee Gets Burned
A moment of schadenfreude. One of the victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is the International Olympic Committee. They could lose up to $5 million. Greed meets greed.
Now, I like the Olympics as much as the next person. The anal retentive schmucks that run the International Olympic Committee — not so much.
For years the International Olympic Committee has been suing, or threatening to sue, anybody — anywhere — who uses the name Olympic. I live near Washington’s Olympic Mountains. Olympic National Park is here; the capital of Washington is Olympia; and the area north and west of Olympic National Park is called the Olympic Peninsula. So far nobody’s forcing Washington to rename the mountain range, the capital city, the park or the peninsula. But you never know.
It stands to reason that a lot of local businesses here have used the name Olympic. Most of them are too small for the International Olympic Committee to bother with, but again you never know. It’s a Sword of Damocles that could fall any second, or it might never fall.
A local winery — Olympic Cellars — has been threatened by the International Olympic Committee. This winery has had the nerve to be successful and start selling some of their wine outside of Western Washington, and the winery is a popular tourist attraction.
For the moment there’s a sort of uneasy truce between Olympic Cellars and the International Olympic Committee. As long as Olympic Cellars stays small and confines most of its sales to the immediate area, nobody gets hurt. OK, no problem. After all, the purpose of going into business for yourself is to stay small and be unsuccessful, right?
Here is a link to some of the other trademark infringement lawsuits that the International Olympic Committee has filed or threatened to file.
Maybe if these assholes hadn’t been so obsessed with squishing every business and organization that uses the name Olympic, they would’ve paid more attention to their investments and not gotten swindled. They’re sort of like that oblivious driver who’s going 45 in the left lane while blabbing on the phone, changing the CD, eating, texting — and then veers off the road and into a ditch.
This post was brought to you by Olympic Blogging™.
cross-posted at Bring It On!
Labels: International Olympic Committee Bernard Madoff, International Olympic Committee trademark lawsuits, Olympic Cellars, Olympic Mountains, Olympic National Park, Olympic Peninsula
posted by Tom Harper @ 2:19 PM
11 Comments:
I'm glad that all these greedy bastards got burned. I just wish that in the end, we all didn't have to pay for it.
I should hereby rename my blog Various Olympic Ecstasies.
Indeed, if acting out overbearing stupidity was an Olympic sport, the jerks behind all those lawsuits would be contenders.
Legally, where the name Olympic refers to a geographic feature or region, I don't see how their lawsuits stand a chance. Maybe it's just that they have the wherewithal to force small businesses to defend against their lawsuits at great expense. IOW, intimidation.
Thanks to Madoff and their own greed, however, the IOC now has less money to pay for lawsuits.
Pathetic.
Is it still okay to use the word Olympian, as in "the IOC, what a bunch of Olympian fuckers?"
geez, what about folks who have named their children Olympia? I know of one, but I'm sure there are more. Or those whose last name may be similar to Olypic? What a crock!
Lew: Yup, serves them right.
Snave: Uh oh, if I go to your blog and find that it's been shut down by the government, we'll know what happened :)
SW: True, overbearing stupidity should be an Olympic event; the assholes at the IOC would win hands down every time. Nobody wants to go to court and face a huge company that has millions to spend on high-power lawyers; I'm sure that's the only reason the IOC has so much clout.
Carlos: Pathetic pretty well sums it up.
Randal: Nope, sorry, that would be a trademark violation.
Kate: Can't allow it, sorry. If you name a child (or a pet) Olympia, the Olympic Police will be knocking at your door :)
Oh, the Olympic Committee can blow it out their pie-hole.
Serves them right for picking Beijing for the summer olympics. I didn't watch a single minute of it, for 2 reasons:
1. Free Tibet!
2. The olympics bore the living daylights out of me.
:)
Bee: The whole Tibet issue sure puts our foreign policy (if there even is one) in an awkward position. Our government might have more concern for Tibet if we weren't fully owned and operated by their Chinese oppressors. And of course, if Tibet had oil or any other resources we needed...
I too can't stand the Olympic committee and find them to be one of the most corrupt bodies on earth. Did the selective memory amuse you at all when they chose China to host? So actually while I hate Madoff I don't mind the committee lost a chunk of change.
Ricardo: I agree, as much as I hate Madoff, this particular victim deserved everything that happened.
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