Copyright Dispute Leads To NFL Not Scouting College Juniors

from the copyright-gone-insane dept

Brooks writes "For once it looks like the NFL isn't the bad guy in an intellectual property dispute, and actually are the ones trying to explain some of the issues with copyright maximalism to colleges. The problem is that the company who records scouting tapes for eight major conferences has convinced colleges that the NFL should pay for the right to use those tapes to scout players, in particular juniors who are trying to decide whether to enter the draft.

From the NFL's point of view, the junior scouting program exists to help keep kids in school if they're unlikely to succeed in the draft in their junior year (it's certainly in the NFL's interest to have those kids continue to develop their talent for one more year). The colleges, of course, see the "value" the tapes bring to the NFL and want a piece of that pie. So far, the NFL seems to be sticking to its guns and basically saying "fine, we just won't scout your players." The dispute has escalated to the point where some colleges aren't even letting NFL scouts look at tape on campus.

There's a bit of a sweet good-for-the-gander element to the story, since the NFL has been on the other side of the content value argument pretty much forever. It does kind of suck, though, that some college juniors will be entering the draft based on overoptimistic expectations. And it can't be good for a college's football program if it becomes known that it doesn't allow NFL scouting."

Yes, you read that right. It seems that the in this era of copyright maximalism, a company is trying to claim copyright on scouting tapes that are helpful to everyone (teams get better scouting info to make decisions, players are more accurately ranked, etc.). A friend who follows minor league baseball mentioned this week that Major League Baseball just took down its own scouting videos that had been online, so I'm wondering if baseball is now facing a similar problem as well.

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NFL Star Ochocinco Sets Up His Own Twitter-Based News Network

from the good-luck-NFL dept

Earlier this year, in talking about the changing nature of sports reporting, one of the things we mentioned was that you shouldn't count out players themselves as a part of that ecosystem, since they could now go direct to fans themselves, without having to talk through a reporter. Of course, sports leagues are scared to death of this concept, and we also noted that the NFL, among others, was seeking to limit how players were interacting with fans, with some teams even punishing players for being honest with fans.

However, with all those rules and guidelines, it seems the NFL didn't count on outspoken Bengals player Chad Ochocinco from taking things even further. Reader DEF was the first to alert us that Ochocinco has decided to set up his own Twitter-based reporting operation on goings on within the NFL, believing that via other players, he'll be able to get the real scoop and post the information faster and more accurately than any traditional "reporter." He says he's "knocking out the middleman."

And this is exactly the point we were making about how the media landscape is changing. People want relevant news and information in a format they find most useful. They don't care if it comes from a reporter, an athlete or the guy down the block. Yes, there are different levels of trust with who delivers the news, but reporters need to realize that they're not the only gatekeepers any more -- no matter how much they wish they were.

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WSJ Defies NFL's Restriction On Live Blogging

from the whatcha-gonna-do-about-it? dept

Remember how the NFL told the press that they weren't allowed to live blog or live Tweet games, as it would be a violation of the league's broadcast rights? I noted that I couldn't see how that was enforceable by the league, other than by kicking reporters out of the stadium. Of course, even that would backfire, because a reporter could just watch the game on TV and live blog. And... in fact... that's exactly what the WSJ just did, apparently thumbing its collective nose at the NFL's restrictions. Ben alerts us to the news that a WSJ reporter, safely on his couch at home, live blogged a recent football game between the NY Jets and the Tennessee Titans. Your move, NFL...

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Social Media Allows For Honest Expression... Don't Stifle It

from the don't-tweet-that dept

There's saying that's been making the rounds lately, in talking about journalism, saying that "trust is the new objectivity." The idea is that if you're trustworthy, even if you have a bias, people are more interested in what you have to say. But, of course, that doesn't just apply to journalists. It pretty much applies to everyone, in any business. People are tired of fake connections. They want real connections. That's what connecting with fans is really all about. If you're honest and open, you build trust. And that trust is valuable. So it's difficult to understand why so many organizations work so hard to stifle that kind of openness. We saw it recently with the Washington Post's new social media guidelines, and we've seen it elsewhere as well, such as with sports teams.

For example, JJ sends in the news that the Jets benched a player for a Twitter message, despite the fact that the team is actually more open to having its players use social media to connect with fans. Hearing this, I figured it must be quite a Twitter message -- seeing as there was just a big controversy over a Redskins player who insulted fans via Twitter, calling them "dimwits" and saying they shouldn't give their opinion on the team since they work at McDonalds. But what did the Jets player say that was so troubling?

"1 play in the 1st Half, 4 plays in the 2nd half,.... A bit disappointed about my playing time but very happy and satisfied about the win."

I'm honestly having a hard time seeing how that's a benchable offense. He was entirely honest, and not accusatory. He was happy that the team won, but wished he could have been involved in more plays. He's a professional athlete, and such sentiments are pretty standard. It actually seems nice that he's sharing with fans in that way. He didn't seem to be complaining or disparaging the team or anyone. He just noted that personally he was "a bit disappointed" that he wasn't more involved.

The fact is, the internet lets people connect with others -- either one-to-one or one-to-many in much more direct and personal ways than ever before in the past. Yes, that has some risks and downsides, but on the whole, that openness and connection builds trust and a relationship, and that's important. It makes no sense to try to stifle such communications, whether its a journalist or a professional athlete.

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NFL: Refs Banned From Using All Social Media; Press Can't Live Tweet

from the free-speech-ain't-so-free dept

While it doesn't go nearly as far as the ridiculous policies put in place recently by college's Southeastern Conference (SEC) regarding "tweeting" on gameday, Ben alerts us to the news that the NFL has instituted its own social media policy that applies to players, referees and the media. There had been lots of talk about how the NFL was working on such policies, and they seem problematic. They ban players from doing any tweeting or sending any kind of social media message from 90 minutes before the game starts until well after the post-game press conference ends. I'm not sure why it's so troubling that players might want to communicate with fans...

Even odder is that the rules now prohibit NFL referees from using social media, ever. Apparently, some of this is in response to a ref who apologized online for a blown call in the week after it happened. In that case, the ref is an attorney during the week, and apologized via his work email. But that raises all sorts of questions. What if the ref's job during the week requires the use of social media? And, honestly, what's so wrong with letting refs communicate?

Finally, the new rules tell the credentialed media that they can't provide any sort of live "play-by-play" info via social media, though, I can't see how that's enforceable (other than kicking the reporter out of the stadium). Once again, this seems like part of the league's misguided belief that it can control how reporters report on a game. The first link above notes how ridiculous it is that someone sitting in the stands can easily live tweet a play-by-play, while the professional reporters cannot. The whole idea, of course, is that the NFL wants to "protect" its broadcasting contracts, that get sold for a ton. But the idea that a live tweet somehow replaces a TV broadcast is ridiculous. Personally, as someone who follows a bunch of sports reporters on Twitter who do tweet info during sporting events, I find it a useful reminder that I wish I had the time to watch a game...

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Yahoo Drops Fantasy Sports Lawsuit Against NFL Players Association; Reasoning Not Clear

from the what-happened-here? dept

Last month, we wrote about Yahoo going to court to make sure it didn't need to pay any royalties to the NFL's Player Association in order to offer up fantasy football data. This would be consistent with recent rulings that have noted that services offering fantasy sports offerings don't need to pay up for the use of data (factual information) such as player names and stats. Oddly, however, Yahoo has now dropped the case, though no one seems quite sure why. It's possible that the NFLPA has said that it won't seek money, but if that's the case, why was the lawsuit filed in the first place?

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Yahoo Gets Aggressive: Wants Court To Make It Clear That It Doesn't Need To Pay To Use Player Names/Stats

from the this-again? dept

Recent court rulings have made it clear that sports leagues have overreached (by a long shot) in trying to force online fantasy sports sites to license player info. The courts have pointed out that player names and stats are factual information, not subject to copyright. Now, this has resulted in many fantasy sports sites to skip renewing any licensing deals. The NFL Players Assocation, despite already having lost such a case, still went to Yahoo and threatened it with a lawsuit over this issue. It appears Yahoo decided to be proactive and sued for a declaratory judgment that its uses of player info was not in violation. It's an aggressive move by Yahoo -- but it also shows (reasonably) that the company believes that it's likely to win (and, perhaps, that it was worried about whatever district the NFL PA would have filed its own lawsuit in). Either way, it's yet another chance to remind sports leagues that they don't get to copyright factual information.

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Mixed Messages From Sprint On EVDO Bandwidth

from the this-doesn't-quite-make-sense dept

Earlier this year, Sprint followed Verizon in tacking on a 5GB cap on its EVDO wireless broadband offering for computers (for either datacard or phone-as-modem users). Because of that, I find Sprint EVDO a lot less useful, and am actively looking for alternatives. Unfortunately, for now there aren't many, though I hope that will change. Either way, I end up using Sprint a lot less, and would be a lot more open to competitors. One of the reasons I stuck with Sprint for so long was the unlimited nature of the EVDO. Even if I don't use up 5GB, not worrying about reaching a limit used to be a huge benefit. Now, when I use EVDO, I feel like I need to carefully track what's happening -- since Sprint might cut off my service if my usage is deemed abusive.

Now, to make matters even more ridiculous, it appears that Sprint has signed a deal "valued at $500 million" to stream live football games over EVDO to its mobile phones. (Half a billion sounds like a big deal, but it doesn't actually mean $500 million was paid out -- it's likely much of it involves trades of promotion and services.) Now, the tricky part is that the 5GB cap on EVDO does not count towards content viewed just on phones, so Sprint is sending a very mixed message. First Sprint says that there isn't enough bandwidth on its network to support really unlimited usage for PC users, but then it's also coming up with ways to increase the amount of bandwidth its customers are using on phones. Does that mean Sprint doesn't care about PC users on its network -- and datacard users will be further squeezed as Sprint prefers its phone customers to use up the wireless bandwidth? Shouldn't Sprint focus on improving its network so that the bandwidth limits for PC users doesn't get worse rather than buying into deals to increase the bandwidth burden?

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CBS Goes To Court To Let The NFL Know That You Can't Copyright Player Stats

from the and-it's-correct dept

Over the past few years, there have been a series of lawsuits concerning whether or not fantasy baseball operators need to license player info from Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball lost at every level and an eventual appeal to the Supreme Court was turned down. However, it appears that the National Football League wanted to ignore these rulings, and has still been trying to get fantasy sports sites to pony up to use stats and player info -- despite the fact that you cannot copyright facts. CBS is now challenging the NFL on this, and has gone to court to get a declaratory judgment that it doesn't need a license. It's difficult to see this case turning out any differently than the MLB cases, considering the facts of the case are almost identical.

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Congress Wants To Separate Church And NFL From Copyright Laws

from the keep-'em-separated dept

Following a second year of stories about the NFL stopping churches from throwing Superbowl parties if they have TV screens larger than 55", it appears that some folks in Congress are stepping up to create an exception in copyright law for "houses of worship." For everyone else, the 55" limit would prevail, but churches would now be allowed to show "The Big Game" without worrying about copyright infringement charges. It's not clear why churches deserve an exemption to this law (or why the 55" limit is in the law in the first place), but don't expect that to stop politicians from jumping on a popular bandwagon issue.

Still, it's fun to watch people who clearly have no understanding of what's going on weigh in on the topic -- sometimes in well known publications. Witness a columnist for the Boston Herald who is upset about the proposed change, but for the wrong reasons. First, he appears to not understand the difference between copyright and trademark, claiming that the NFL has to enforce its copyright or it will lose it (that would actually be trademark, but who's fact checking?). He then goes on to state that "the copyrights are private property, and the league has every right within the law to profit from that property." Indeed, but banning 55" screens doesn't prevent the NFL's right to profit. In fact, this gets even more ridiculous when the guy says: "To have the government in effect confiscate that property to benefit religious institutions seems a very worrisome precedent." Wait, and having the government in effect determine the maximum size of a private TV isn't a worrisome precedent?

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Super Bowl Intellectual Property Insanity: No Big Screen Super Bowl Parties, Trademarking 19-0

from the the-big,-big-game dept

Well here are a couple stories to leave you with as we head into Super Bowl weekend. Every year it seems there's some insanity concerning the NFL somehow trying to abuse intellectual property rights above and beyond what they're designed for. Remember, the NFL thinks that it can tell reporters how to report on a game, while also forcing them to advertise for NFL sponsors. It also has been known to issue bogus DMCA notices. And, of course, don't forget that not only has the NFL bullied people into believing that you can't use the phrase "The Super Bowl" in an advertisement, after many advertisers switched to the euphemism "The Big Game" to appease the NFL, it tried to trademark "The Big Game" as well.

This year, the big news (as submitted by a lot of you), but first by Ryan, is that the New England Patriots have applied for a trademark on "19-0" to represent the undefeated season the team will have if it wins this season. The NY Post, snarky as ever, filed for a trademark on 18-1 in response, supporting the home town NY Giants. This, of course, seems rather ridiculous. What would happen in future seasons if some other team was able to go 19-0? There's also the question of hubris in declaring yourself 19-0 before that final game. On that note, you can already pre-order a book about the 19-0 season, even though it hasn't been completed yet.

That's not all, though. Last year, we had a story that got tremendous attention about the NFL stopping churches from having Super Bowl parties, if they had a TV that was bigger than 55". There was a lot of fuss about it, and you would think that, perhaps, the NFL would let it slide this year. Not so. Ethan Bauley writes in to let us know that, once again, the NFL has been going around stopping churches from holding Super Bowl... er... The Big Game... er... "Best Commercials Of The Year, Interrupted By Some Game" parties, for having TVs that are too big.

So, remember, as you watch the... event... this weekend, to do so on a TV smaller than 55", do not refer to it as "The Super Bowl" or "The Big Game," make sure to notice the photojournalists wearing sponsors' clothing, and certainly do not put a fair use clip on YouTube. And, perhaps, cheer on the Giants in their effort to make the 19-0 trademark question a hypothetical, rather than practical, question.

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NFL Still Thinks It Can Tell News Organizations How They Can Report The News

from the that's-not-how-this-all-works dept

Back in July, we couldn't figure out how the NFL could get away with telling news organizations that they could only put 45 seconds of video online that had either game clips or videos of players. This made no sense. The NFL does not have any right to determine how reporters report the news. If they conduct their own interviews with players or film their own footage, they should be able to broadcast as much of it as they feel appropriate. They also shouldn't (as demanded by the NFL) have to link back to the NFL's official website. While these may be what the NFL wants, it has no way of actually enforcing this -- as news reporters don't need the NFL's permission to broadcast an interview they filmed with a player. However, it still seems like broadcasters aren't up to challenging the NFL on this bogus rule. Reader Jon writes in to let us know that the NFL (how kind of it) has exempted NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN from these rules. However, the reasoning isn't that the NFL never had the right to demand such things of news organizations in the first place -- but that these TV networks have already paid fees to the NFL averaging more than $3 billion a year. Therefore, the NFL figures, they might as well post slightly more video online. Of course, this is still ridiculous. If any news organization wants to film their own interviews with players and broadcast them online, that's between the player being interviewed and the news organization. The NFL should have no say at all over what a news organization can or cannot post on their website. Any news organization going along with these restrictions should have its journalistic integrity questioned, since they're allowing the subjects of a story to dictate how they present the news.

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FTC Asked To Stop Bogus Copyright Warnings In Sports Broadcasts

from the stop-the-copyright-abuse dept

You may recall earlier this year that law professor Wendy Seltzer received a DMCA takedown notice from the NFL for posting a short clip to YouTube of the part during the Super Bowl where the announcers state the famous warning that often reads something like "Any rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of the pictures, accounts or descriptions of this game without the express written consent of Big Sports League, is prohibited." What got lost in the Seltzer story over whether or not posting that particular clip to YouTube was legal, was that her point in using it was to show how sports leagues were making claims to rights that copyright didn't actually give them. It appears that enough others have noticed this as well that a trade group, backed by various big name tech companies, is now asking the Federal Trade Commission to prevent broadcasters from making such "deceptive" copyright statements. The group is claiming that this incorrect statement that clearly reaches beyond the rights copyright provides, is harmful to consumers and technology companies. Of course, in the sports leagues' (and other content companies') defense, it appears that plenty of people ignore the bogus copyright warning anyway.

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NFL Pushing Boundaries Of Ridiculous: Demands Photo Journalists Advertise Sponsors At Games

from the they're-just-seeing-how-far-they-can-push-it,-right? dept

The NFL really seems to be seeing just how far it can push journalists around these days. First it told them they couldn't videotape any part of the game themselves and had to use officially provided video. Then it told them that there was a limit to how much video any publication could show on its website, even if that video was filmed entirely by the publication itself. Apparently it's now moving on to abusing photojournalists as well. The NFL is now requiring all sideline photographers to wear vests advertising NFL sponsors. It seems the NFL considers the very journalists who help promote the sport as mere billboards and mouthpieces of its sponsors. Next up, perhaps it'll start requiring fans to wear advertising vests as well.

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