2020 Japan Olympics

[wagyl]

... and thus once again civil remedies and criminal charges are conflated......

... and Matsuki employs the sort of thinking which gets Kyushu ALTs in hot water.

[matsuki]

... and Matsuki employs the sort of thinking which gets Kyushu ALTs in hot water.

I'm not saying I recommend doing what this guy did (blatant infringement for profit no matter how you look at it) just pointing out that for all IP protection fangs that have come out here, they didn't even bother employing the most basic measure when it comes to logos.

[wagyl]

Go for your life!

[Wage Slave]

I've been mildly curious about what TM and TM in a circle means for a while so I had a little look. For a starters:

Trademark infringement occurs when one party uses a trademark that is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services of the other party. In many countries, a trademark receives protection without registration, but registering a trademark provides legal advantages for enforcement. Infringement can be addressed by civil litigation and, in several jurisdictions, under criminal law.[44][50]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

So it isn't compulsory to register your trademark to have legal protection and hence there is no requirement to add a TM mark. A simple TM mark indicates you are asserting that your image or expression is a trademark. A TM in a circle, at least in the US, means it has been registered as a trademark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_symbol

It seems that in Japan and the UK, companies and organisations that are confident in their trademark see no need to clutter the design on every single use with a TM mark. American companies appear to see more need - perhaps it is significantly more difficult to enforce it without a mark in the US.

[kurogane]

My impression is that Americans are simply more likely to ripoff trademarks and copyrights as seen in the street stalls selling bootleg CDs and T-shirts, etc. I was amazed at the amount of counterfeit goods openly for sale on the street and in smaller stalls in downtown NY. I got a great Mike backpack, complete with swoosh and artfully fudged M for about $20 USD and the nylon material was of a nicer quality than the $80 original at the NIKE store a few blocks away and was made in the US not China like the original. I can't remember much of that in the UK and we don't do it much in Canada except in Chinatown or Somaliville in the bigger cities.

[yanpa]

Based on the use of the word "arrest" and the involvement of the police, this is not a civil matter.

It should be though.

The International Olympic Committee is notorious for forcing stronger protections over its intellectual property, including demanding special legislation and rights. The fact that they have got a specialist, dedicated unit in the Metropolitan Police is just one example.

You mean the City of London Police?

[wagyl]

Actually, I was referring to 警視庁 but thank you for introducing me to Football Against Fakes.

[yanpa]

Actually, I was referring to 警視庁 but thank you for introducing me to Football Against Fakes.

Sozzies, "Metropolitan Police" is so ingrained in my mind with the machine-gun toting Brazilian-executing Bobbies of London-Outside-The-City I thought you were confusing them with their colleagues from inside the boundary defined by the old Roman walls, who seem to have got it into their heads to tackle global copyright issues.

[matsuki]

I've been mildly curious about what TM and TM in a circle means for a while so I had a little look. For a starters:

Trademark infringement occurs when one party uses a trademark that is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services of the other party. In many countries, a trademark receives protection without registration, but registering a trademark provides legal advantages for enforcement. Infringement can be addressed by civil litigation and, in several jurisdictions, under criminal law.[44][50]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

So it isn't compulsory to register your trademark to have legal protection and hence there is no requirement to add a TM mark. A simple TM mark indicates you are asserting that your image or expression is a trademark. A TM in a circle, at least in the US, means it has been registered as a trademark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_symbol

It seems that in Japan and the UK, companies and organisations that are confident in their trademark see no need to clutter the design on every single use with a TM mark. American companies appear to see more need - perhaps it is significantly more difficult to enforce it without a mark in the US.

Basically, ™ or (sm) is used to assert something is your trademark, ® is used if it's federally registered...

Use of the registration symbol or other notice is not mandatory in every jurisdiction; however, it is important, not only because it provides notice of the owner’s trademark rights but also because it may allow the owner to assert certain types of damages in lawsuits against infringers. For instance, in the United States, failure to use a registration notice limits the remedies available to a trademark owner in a lawsuit. Failure to use a registration notice may prevent a plaintiff from recovering damages and profits in a suit for infringement if the defendant is not shown to have actual notice of the registration.

Marking may also help a trademark owner maintain its rights in the mark by avoiding descriptive use of the mark in advertising and labeling. Such use can lead to “genericide,” the process by which a mark loses its distinctiveness when consumers use the mark as the “name” of the product or service.

I've registered trademarks in both the US and Japan, it takes months...the real work is enforcing them though. My guess is both the logo used here and the ones wags posted are not even registered...with the thought that nobody would be dumb enough to use them and the fact that they are all "candidate city" logos. (....txt which is not included in this guys drug dealer spread above) Anyhow, this dude is an idiot but I am interested in how the situation further unfolds. (arrest, criminal charges, I can see seizing the spread and a police report for a civil suit but dayam....)

[wagyl]

Candidate city merchandise is made and sold, and has a market. My guess is that they rely on brute force Olympic remedies, better than the puny remedies available to the rest of us.

By the way, Kyushu ALT is 53 years old. Apparently he had about one customer a month.

[matsuki]

Candidate city merchandise is made and sold, and has a market. My guess is that they rely on brute force Olympic remedies, better than the puny remedies available to the rest of us.

By the way, Kyushu ALT is 53 years old. Apparently he had about one customer a month.

I think you're probably right...can't imagine the market is big, even this dude was selling stuff that made it look like the official logo. (Sakura hibiscus isn't great but it indeed looks better than the official "funeral decoration" logo) Anyhow, olympic-sized power or not, will be interesting to see what comes of this...I mean, the usual financial penalties for criminal acts here are more than this guy made out with...

[wagyl]

... which is possibly part of the reason that this is a criminal charge. If they were relying on commercial damage we are probably talking 36 yen.

[matsuki]

... which is possibly part of the reason that this is a criminal charge. If they were relying on commercial damage we are probably talking 36 yen.

yep...I guess maybe it is worth an attempt at filing a police report in my case:

As trademark infringement is punishable by 5 years or less imprisonment or by fines of 5,000,000 yen or less, criminal prosecution may be involved in a trademark infringement case (Trademark Law Article 78). As for corporations, there is a so called dual liability provision, which provides that when an employee commits an offense of infringement of a trade mark right in connection to the corporation's business, a fine is imposed on the juristic person in addition to the penalty for the infringer (Trademark Law Article 82).

http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/ipr/eng/in ... y03-2.html

A criminal suit can also be filed, but is effective only if the subject products infringe a relatively simple patent, a utility model, a design right or a trademark right.

https://www.ondatechno.com/English/ip/e ... ement.html

[dimwit]

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike on Saturday visited a boat race course in Miyagi Prefecture, a facility emerging as an alternative venue for the rowing and canoe sprint events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games.

“Based on this visit, I will start considering venues,” Koike told reporters after inspecting facilities at the Naganuma rowing course in the city of Tome, more than 400 kilometers from Tokyo. Miyagi is one of the prefectures in northeastern Japan hit hardest by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Games organizers and the International Rowing Federation had already approved the Sea Forest Waterway venue to be constructed on Tokyo Bay, but a metropolitan government cost review panel recommended last month that plan be reconsidered.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/1 ... oe-sprint/

My son is a rower and his coach is a former Olympian, and he can't understand why the Sea Forest Waterway site was ever chosen. No one even seemed to ask any rowers what they felt about the site. It is very exposed to the winds on Tokyo Bay, add the polluted waters and the salt water corrosion and it is Hello Rio. There are perfectly adequete facilities in Saitama where they regularly hold national rowing competitions. Apparently, the Miyagi facilities are also adequete but would require building Olympic residences as the present facilities are designed for Japanese people (i.e. people less than 190 cm tall).

[kurogane]

It's starting to sound like the organisers only have one oar in the water



PS I am quite saddened this Olympic bid has fulfilled all but the absolute bottom basement lowest of my negative expectations. Given the energy, enthusiasm and money spent I had hoped I would be proven wrong. Fukkkkkk

[Taro Toporific]

... There are perfectly adequate {rowing} facilities in Saitama where they regularly hold national rowing competitions.

Damn, I have been wondering why Saitama rowing facilities were not being considered. I can remember going in 1964 to the Toda Olympic Rowing Center (Toda, Saitama -- 6 lane FISA) and thinking it was really good compared to the left-over rowing center in Long Beach California (1932 Olympics).

[wagyl]

Damn, I have been wondering why Saitama rowing facilities were not being considered.

That one is simple. It doesn't require a construction contract to be issued. That is one big reason to reject right there!

[kurogane]

The facilities there are probably a touch tacky...........mostly due to the locale in which they are located

[Russell]

IOC may move some Tokyo 2020 Olympic events to South Korea

The International Olympic Committee is considering moving the rowing and canoeing events at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to South Korea in an attempt to cut soaring costs, according to Japanese media reports.

Depriving Japan of the events risks provoking a backlash from the Tokyo 2020 organisers, and would make a mockery of the city’s vow to hold a “compact” Games.

Kyodo News and the Asahi Shimbun on Tuesday cited unnamed sources as saying that the events could be held in the South Korean city of Chungju – one of the venues for the 2014 Asian Games – if organisers and Tokyo’s governor, Yuriko Koike, fail to agree on a site in Japan.

The option of moving the sports out of the country is reportedly being considered after a panel of experts Koike set up to review costs recently proposed moving the rowing and canoe sprint several hundred miles from the capital to a venue in north-east Japan, rather than building a new venue in Tokyo Bay.

The panel also suggested renovating existing venues in Tokyo for volleyball and swimming and scrapping plans to construct new stadia for the sports. It put the cost of hosting Tokyo 2020 at 3 trillion yen (£23bn), four times the original estimate and almost three times higher than London 2012.

Koike became Tokyo’s first female governor in July after promising to slash wasteful spending. But by targeting the Olympics as one area in which savings could be made, she risks alienating Games organisers and sports federations that have called for rowing, swimming and volleyball to be kept in Tokyo.

In a meeting with the IOC president, Thomas Bach, in Tokyo on Tuesday, Koike said the public supported her economy drive. “When I won the election two months ago, I swore to the public that the spending for the Olympics and Paralympics needed to be reviewed,” Koike said, according to Kyodo.

Koike said she would conclude her review of the three Olympic venues by the end of the month.

Bach refused to comment on “media rumours” about rowing’s possible switch to South Korea, but said the IOC was willing to work with Koike to reduce spiralling costs.

“The Tokyo metropolitan government will finalise its internal study, then we’ll discuss it with the other stakeholders ... and then I am confident that you will see a significant reduction in the cost compared to what we have seen so far from the press,” he told reporters.

The controversy over the rowing and canoe-kayak sprint competitions deepened on Tuesday after the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper claimed that the Tokyo metropolitan government had lied to the IOC about the cost of building permanent facilities for the events.

The paper said Tokyo government officials had dramatically understated construction costs in a report to the IOC, allegedly to ensure the sports would be held in the capital.

The Mainichi report quoted Tokyo government documents showing that building Sea Forest, a new rowing and canoeing facility in Tokyo Bay, would cost 25 billion yen. The estimate given to the IOC, however, was 9.8 billion yen.

“The IOC pointed out that our expenses were too high, so we gave them an unfounded figure,” the Mainichi quoted a senior Tokyo metropolitan government official as saying.

The total cost of building the Sea Forest venue, including surrounding parks and other “legacy” infrastructure, has been estimated at 49.1 billion yen. Government officials, however, said on Tuesday they should be able reduce that figure to 30 billion yen by shrinking the size of some facilities.

Olympic organisers and the International Rowing Federations are dismayed by the prospect of the event being held either in Naganuma Boat Park in Tome, Miyagi – one of three prefectures hit hard by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami – or in South Korea.

More

LOL

If it goes on like that, all of the Tokyo Olympics will be held in South-Korea...

[legion]

LOL

If it goes on like that, all of the Tokyo Olympics will be held in South-Korea...

Looks like a sad attempt at hardball.

Shut down the fucking Olympics for all I care, tax payer funded corporate wankfest.

[matsuki]

“The IOC pointed out that our expenses were too high, so we gave them an unfounded figure,” the Mainichi quoted a senior Tokyo metropolitan government official as saying.

How do you Japanese loophole that and not call it flat out fraud?

Not everyone is still clamoring to host the next Olympics..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09 ... -olympics/

[wagyl]

Watch out! LA will be left holding the time bomb!

[matsuki]

Watch out! LA will be left holding the time bomb!

The way people complain about the price of gasoline there, I doubt it could ever get as bad as the current Tokyo Games corruption is....and with the aging infrastructure, I'd actually welcome the games there if they spent money there and re-used/remodeled existing venues. Could be a shining example of how to do the games right...could being the key word though...

[legion]

Giovanni Malago, the president of the Italian Olympic Committee, was scathing of Miss Raggi’s announcement. "Don't talk about things you know nothing about," he said, urging the mayor not to put the motion before the city assembly.

Nice to see Italy also has its quota of fucking pricks.

[Taro Toporific]

"Dude, where's my flying car?"

jetson-animated-car.gif

Engineers hope to light Olympic cauldron with a flying car
The Asahi Shimbun | Oct. 20, 2016
...The automotive and aviation engineers are aiming to run their vehicle on the track of the new National Stadium and fly it to the Olympic cauldron to light the flame at the opening ceremony....
...To develop a car that can be both driven and flown, a group of 20 engineers ranging in age from 26 to 35, which calls itself Cart!vator, is conducting experiments at a disused school deep in the mountains....
More...

flying-car_500x.jpg

[Russell]

:thumbs:
"Dude, where's my flying car?"

jetson-animated-car.gif

Engineers hope to light Olympic cauldron with a flying car
The Asahi Shimbun | Oct. 20, 2016
...The automotive and aviation engineers are aiming to run their vehicle on the track of the new National Stadium and fly it to the Olympic cauldron to light the flame at the opening ceremony....
...To develop a car that can be both driven and flown, a group of 20 engineers ranging in age from 26 to 35, which calls itself Cart!vator, is conducting experiments at a disused school deep in the mountains....
More...

flying-car_500x.jpg

Even the Dutch figured this one out already.

[Grumpy Gramps]

If everything goes after The Big Master Plan, we might even have flying tanks in Japan by 2020

[Takechanpoo]

its because seems like japanese programming skill is below 3rd world.

[Samurai_Jerk]

its because seems like japanese programming skill is below 3rd world.

Ever hear of outsourcing?

[Coligny]

If everything goes after The Big Master Plan, we might even have flying tanks in Japan by 2020

I'll be in my bunk...