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NFL, MLB Support Ruling Against DeCSS
Chuck Fu writes "Both the NFL and Major League Baseball submitted their brief today in support of the lower court's ruling against DeCSS,
stating that DeCSS
'threatens to destroy the legitimate marketplace for works of art, music, film, software, literature and other video programming
(including sports programming), and will deter the development and distribution of new works in state-of-the-art digital media.'
ZDNet and
CNet
has the story."
Obviously, I'm sure these sports organisations only know what the MPAA has told them about DeCSS.
This case is pretty much the only reason I have DeCSS on my computer, I don't have a DVD-Rom and the DVD Player I do have is a different region than the DVDs I have (which annoys me to no end).
Also:
Unchecked, such piracy threatens to destroy the legitimate marketplace for works of art..."
Yes, because everybody on the net is a pirate. Gimme a break, I don't see the Recording Industry going down in flames because of "piracy".
As if anyone even uses DeCSS. At all. It doesn't even work for newer DVDs. I use vobdec personally.
okay, im pleased by the fact that these major sports organizations are on our side (heck, their being on our side may mobilize a large portion of the population) but it DOES beg the question... why?! what's their stake in it? i dont exactly see basketball players having to use DeCSS for any reason at all.. the question is hard to answer. any ideas?
Ratio of replies to old sig content : replies to actual post content > 0.5. Sig changed.
Hmm...
MLB has claimed ownership of all facts (statistics) resulting from their 'performance art' They wanted to charge the media for the right to report game scores (as an anti-fan I considered this vindication in claiming that sports isn't news)
The NFL took to trademarking the names fan groups applied to themselves - so they could charge the fans in direct proportion to their enthusiasm (being an anti-fan, I of course applauded this move - soak the fans for enough and they will eventually get a clue)
An important point to remember is that the sports cartels do spend most of their time dealing criminals and 'morally challenged' individuals. These people - which is what the sports cartels base their opinions of everyone else on are known as 'players', 'agents', 'media', and 'lawyers'. Given the nature of these people it is easy to understand how the sports cartels are concerned about the billions of dollars they are losing illegal viewing of their 'performance art'.
All these talk of 'performance art' has reminded me - when will we be seeing the briefs from the real performance artists (pro wrestling). After all, they do have real money at stake here.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Okay, let me ask you a question. Have any of you bought, or plan to buy an NFL or MLB game on dvd? No, didn't think so. Not unless they're starting to actually use film to record the games, shooting it in a nice 2.35:1 ratio, with six channel surround sound, and the OPTIONAL commentaries. Oh yeah, and then there's the problem with making the game actually SEEM interesting, which is virtually impossible since the strike.
These guys are probably doing more than just parroting the Jack Valenti. The NFL was a big player in the lawsuit that shut down iCrave. The Canadian website was webcasting TV shows, including football games, that it received from US TV station broadcasts.
I don't know that the NFL or MLB release any DVD's yet (though they do put out greatest highlights and season retrospectives on VHS), but I'm sure they are very aware of the potential damage to their traditional revenue stream that new technology poses. It's unfortunate that they, like the RIAA and the MPAA, choose to fight progress with legal action, rather than try to embrace technology and fing new ways to make money that take advantage of it. But sports fans have long ago learned to live with the annoying, misguided, and down-right evil actions of sports team owners.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
So now that we've established that DeCSS has no impact on athletes.. how does it impact the baseball leagues and the NFL? Does it screw the management (greedy bastards)? Does the media cartel have their hands down someone else's pants? They [the players and management and co.] just strike me as another greedy organization looking to exploit the little guy.
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
come on, we all went to high school. when did a jock ever say anything intelligent?
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
Ever heard of NFL Flims or the MLB films archive? They shoot in high-res digital video now, in the 16:9 aspect ratio.
Remember all of those NFL archive films narrated by the late, great John Facenda? You know, the ones that start off, "From the snowy, frigid tundra of Lambeau Field..." They're all on film stock - a great medium for transferral to high-res digital.
Of course noone will buy a game on dvd... but they will buy the aggregate highlights of a whole season, of the career of a player.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
It's pretty simple. A large portion of sports team owners get their revenue from network contracts. If the networks feel they cannot have control over their content(on the net hehee;-), then their product becomes a commodity, like the rest of the IP in the world.
If because of this the sports teams revenues go down, then so do the franchise valuations go down and the professional athelete makes 1/3 of what he does today.
If brodcasters cannot "lock up" their content, then their crapIP will be spread all over the net.(god forbid people actually watch any of their programming anyway they can)
Why don't the network television stations just upload their content to a freenet node is beyond me. They can embed advertising in their content and have the luxury of not having to pay for bandwidth!