The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has defended its move to demand that Greentop Community Circus remove all Olympics references from its fundraising activities.

Civilsociety.co.uk reported yesterday that circus arts charity Greentop had been forced to abandon the Olympics theme of its monthly fundraising cabaret after Locog got in touch to warn that it was infringing copyright.  The Greentop Youth Circus also had to change the theme of its end-of-year show as it too had an Olympics theme.

Locog has been accused of being disproportionate and heavy-handed in its drive to protect the branding rights of official Olympics sponsors, with the result that small organisations are put off doing anything to celebrate the Games for fear of breaking the law.  

A number of civilsociety.co.uk readers posted comments to that effect on yesterday’s story.

But Locog has insisted it was right to tackle Greentop over the issue, as the circus was not just planning to theme its events around the Games, it was actually offering ‘Olympic entertainers’ for hire through its website.

A spokesman provided an image of the web page (see below) and said: “A London 2012 representative gave them a call and explained that use of the brand has to be protected because the money to stage the Games is being raised privately through sponsorship, ticketing and merchandise sales.

“London 2012 asked Greentop Community Circus to remove the ‘Olympic entertainers’ section of their website, which they have now done.”

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