Don’t look at her logos

Lindsey Vonn not weaing name brand gear

From TechDirt – The International Olympics Committee’s abuse of intellectual property law continues to go to ridiculous lengths. Slashdot points out that apparently UVEX, makers of popular skiing gear such as goggles and helmets  had happily mentioned somewhere that gold medal winner Lindsey Vonn had worn some of their gear on their website… and the IOC sent them some sort of nastygram.

Amusingly, UVEX responded in verse, with a blog post entitled Blonde we like wins Downhill (Last name rhymes with “Bonn”).

There once was a lawyer from the IOC,
who called us to protect “intellectual property.”

“During the Olympics”, she said with a sneer
“your site can’t use an Olympian’s name even if they use your gear.”

“No pictures, no video, no blog posts can be used…”
Even if they are old? “No!”, she enthused.

While Olympians chase gold the IOC pursues green.
Cough up millions, or your logo cannot be seen.

Except there it is, on top of countless heads!
Tax free endorsements the IOC dreads.

And so it is with a wink and a nudge
that we would like to congratulate a skier whose name we must fudge.

Her hair is long and blonde
Last name rhymes with the German city of Bonn.

Congratulations Women’s Downhill winner —
from all of us here at UVEX (no longer an IOC sinner).

I can’t see how such a claim could stand up in court. Accurately reporting that an Olympian wore your gear seems like it would fall under a perfectly legitimate fair use claim. But who has time to battle the IOC? In the meantime, did you know that Lindsey Vonn wore UVEX gear even though (*gasp*!) UVEX didn’t sponsor the Olympics?