Can A Sports Organization Claim Copyright On Stuff You Filmed Yourself?

from the seems-difficult... dept

Earlier this year, we noted that with the rise of the ability to film and broadcast video directly from mobile phones, it was only a matter of time until we ran into some legal battles about fans filming and "broadcasting" a live sporting event. Now, while those who control the venues can certainly put their own restrictions about what you do while on their property, it's going to become increasingly impossible to stop people from filming with their mobile phones. The next question, though, is what happens to that footage?

A bunch of folks have sent in a story by Rory Cellan-Jones about how YouTube took down a video he had uploaded of 37 seconds of a football (soccer for us Americans) match in the UK he had attended. As he noted, he knew that the football leagues in the UK were angry over their content being webcast, but he thought it was for taking the official stream and rebroadcasting it online.

This actually raises a lot of questions. I'm not sure of the details on UK copyright law here, so perhaps it's different, but in the US, the copyright on the video would belong to Cellan-Jones, since he took the video. The league would have every right to demand he stop or to remove him from the stadium, but it's not clear if it could stop him from posting it online afterwards -- and it certainly wouldn't be allowed to file a copyright notice demanding it be taken down, as that would be falsely representing themselves as the copyright holder on the content. It doesn't sound like Cellan-Jones is looking to fight this, but this question isn't going to go away, and I'm sure eventually we'll see some lawsuits on this very topic.

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