Pirate broadcasters using the Internet to distribute unlicensed video footage seem to be staying away from the Olympic Games

Pirate broadcasters using the Internet to distribute unlicensed video footage seem to be staying away from the Olympic Games, a senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) official said on Monday. Marketing director Michael Payne said a mammoth monitoring operation of the Worldwide Web commissioned by the IOC to track Olympic cover and infringements of broadcast rights had thrown up only about 12 cases since the Sydney Games opened on Friday. Payne said a handful of renegade Web broadcasters had been tracked down and had agreed to stop showing footage from the Olympics without the IOC having to resort to legal action. "To the best of my knowledge, everyone has accepted the friendly call," he said. Internet broadcasts of sporting action at the Games have been effectively banned. Games broadcasting contracts, which have reaped the IOC $1.3 billion from rights holders in Sydney, prevent companies from sending video or audio signals outside their own country or region. But the explosion of the Internet, and its global reach, mean anyone with an inexpensive Web camera and access to the Internet can send moving images around the world. The IOC is using a French-based company, Datops SA, to monitor some 24,000 different sites for how the Olympics are filtering through to the Internet and to track any infringements of its jealously guarded -- and moneyspinning -- Olympic symbols.