News organizations are barred from making GIFs and Vine-like videos of the Olympics this year, according to the rules of the International Olympic Committee.
The rule is in place to protect broadcasters—including NBC in the U.S.—that paid $1.2 billion for the exclusive rights to air the Olympic games and produce coverage of them.
The ban applies to any animated formats including “animated GIFs (i.e. GIFV), GFY, WebM, or short video formats such as Vines and others,” the IOC says.
The committee also forbids news organizations from broadcasting Olympic media on video-on-demand platforms and on any “interactive services” that aren’t part of a news program for fear that audiences won’t tune in for official Olympic broadcasts if they can get the footage elsewhere anytime they want.
The GIF-ban will prevent moments from the games this year from being immortalized, so its unlikely Internet-goers will see another GIF like the one made of gymnast McKayla Maroney’s flawless vault during the 2012 Olympic games in London.
GIFs were all the rage during the last summer games, so naturally the Internet is mourning the loss of them this year:
Just learned the IOC bans turning Olympic content into GIFs. A moment of silence please. pic.twitter.com/22Cxmv9HZ2
— KSL Browser 5.0 (@kslbrowser50) August 5, 2016
https://twitter.com/katiedero/status/761433367476858880
The 2016 Olympic games officially started today in Rio.
