Pirating the Olympics, Then and Now

Back in 2004, I wrote about how high-quality videos from the Olympics in Athens were being digitized and posted online, in defiance of the networks and the IOC's rules.

At the time, NBC's online coverage was restrictive by today's standards — mostly highlight clips and no live video, delayed until after the events aired on TV, and required a valid credit card to verify residency in the United States.

But that was four years ago! YouTube hadn't launched yet, HD-quality streaming video on Vimeo was three years away, and BitTorrent or HDTV were only popular with early adopters.

This year, it's much improved, albeit with some caveats. NBC's official video is great quality, if you and your computer can stomach Silverlight (unavailable on non-Intel Macs). Their coverage is fantastic, though still tape-delayed. And, because of IOC regulations forbidding international distribution, NBC won't allow you to download, embed, or transcode any videos for your iPod or phone.

A quick search on Mininova or BTJunkie returns a huge list of every video found on Usenet, plus dozens more and growing hourly.

Waxy.org is the sandbox of Andy Baio, an independent journalist and programmer living in Portland, Oregon. I created Upcoming.org and some other stuff too.

Contact Me: log@waxy.org or waxpancake on AIM