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Thou Shalt Not View The Super Bowl on a 56" Screen
theodp writes "For 200 members of the Immanuel Bible Church and their friends, the annual Super Bowl party is over thanks to the NFL, which explained that airing NFL games at churches on large-screen TV sets violates the NFL copyright. Federal copyright law includes an exemption for sports bars, according to NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy, but churches are out of luck. Churchgoers who aren't averse to a little drinking-and-driving still have the opportunity to see the game together in public on a screen bigger than 55 inches."
I hope the NFL enforces this across America. Since most people are apparently too stupid to notice how the greedy bastards are taking away their freedoms, maybe this will wake more than a few of them up.
John
on my slashdot? it may be more likely than i think. seriously though, here's a story about 2 very non-geek things apparently in conflict with each other. weird.
After all, it's really hard to make a profit on the Super Bowl.
:-(
After all, the advertisements were set at an as low rate as $90,000 per second.
Seriously, let's think of the NFL for once.
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I suggest you talk to the director and cameramen and ask them if there's no creative work going on.
This whole thing is ridiculous. Yes, the NFL is overzealous in protecting their content and possibly to the point of going over the line. However, I'm tired of all these bullshit excuses to get the population behind an individual or individual group's causes by saying such and such a company did XYZ to me... AND I'M A MOTHER WITH SIX CHILDREN! or such and such a company had the audacity to do this to us... AND WE WORSHIP BABY JESUS!.
Who cares? Squirting out kids or belonging to a church doesn't earn you special rights, special treatment, special sympathy or special consideration.
A person I know works for a church, and that church had investigated this before, and received the same answer. This is not news. It also does not surprise me that there is an exemption for sports bars. Don't get me wrong, me and the booze, we get along great. But if there's a ban on public performance there's a ban on it. Besides, using the NFL's logic, the ban should be the other way around. The sports bar make money showing the football game. Churches are tax exempt, and therefore do not officially make money.
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I'm not supposed to watch the Super Bowl if I have a 56" TV? Got it. Anything else they don't want me to watch? Not sure how my not watching helps their ratings but I'm happy to help in this case.
RTFA
...but it doesn't mean you get to take someone else's show or movie and charge admission to watch it...
If the church wants to use the NFL's football games to attract more members to the church, and charge the people coming to the party to pay for that outreach program...
Read the article; it specifically states that the church was *not* charging admission.
It's the only way to get some of those people to go to Church on Super Bowl Sunday.
how can they claim a church, receiving/viewing the broadcast, is "copying," and therefore in violation of copyright?
Since the only practical use of a broadcast is to view it, isn't such viewing (at least non-commercially) "fair use?" Why is it a copyright violation for a group of parishiners to watch together, but not for a family to do the same? Is a license required to view content carried over the public airwaves? (this isn't Great Britain!)
BTW, you totally missed/ignored the original point - a sports broadcast is functional, not creative.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
There are pretty much fixed rules for what and how the game should be filmed. Sure it takes some effort and skill to learn the rules, but there is very little room for "artistic freedom" - a cameraman doing his own thing is likely to be fired.
Just because something requires skill to perform doesn't automatically make it creative. A plumber requires skill to do plumbing repairs. In fact plumbing repair may even more involve "creativity" than the cameraman situation, since cleverness may be required to work around unexpected problems and unforeseen situations.
The NFL's absolutist position on copyright (*no* use without permission) is contrary to both the copyright law itselfand in fact to the Constitution. In particular, "fair use" is a Constituional concept: in its original decision that established the doctrine of Fair Use, the Supreme Court said that Congress may not pass a copyright act so restrictive that it destroys freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Inasmuch as that is within the purview of the NFL's business, their statements about this are under law assumed to be deliberate and in full knowledge of that relevant law. Therefore, one must assume that the NFL's fraudulent claims of absolute control under the copyright act are a deliberate and knowing attempt to defraud the public. For that fraud, the NFL should be prosecuted.
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IP law is, frankly, a mess. Either unify all the concepts into one single notion, OR sub-divide the existing categories into wholly uniform concepts. Force-fitting one idea into a mechanism never designed or intended to be used in such an abstract manner creates a great deal of confusion over what actually is permissible and makes rational discourse on what should be permissible difficult to impossible. I would argue for unification, partly because you are dealing with underlying principles but also because if the unification is valid and correct, it will remain valid and correct for any future technologies within the bounds for which it is defined. Splitting the categories up into much finer-grain notions would make each rule much easier to understand, much easier to follow and much easier to enforce rationally and fairly, but makes IP as a whole harder to conceptualize and doesn't scale well as new methods of delivering information emerge.
This church fiasco might - possibly - turn out quite useful if the level of resentment generated is sufficient to persuade the politicians that genuine reform (ie: not in the pockets of corporations) is in the interest of voters and therefore their own jobs. Narking a few churches off, though, probably isn't going to generate enough sustained ill-will to do anything beyond getting a few more people seriously drunk and lower that week's collection takings by a few dollars. Anyone who feels wronged on Sunday will have forgotten by Tuesday at the latest. No, the NFL would need to do something far more serious to do any good for the country.
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FWIW, a church tends to be more than just a place of worship. It's also a community center. (A tradition that long predates modern community centers.) While no one is going to watch the game in the service area, churches often have a basement or some other meeting area set aside for community events. Watching the SuperBowl together qualifies as a community event, and gives families a place to watch the game together without having to visit a sports bar. (A rather rowdy place during a game like the Superbowl.)
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I suggest you talk to the director and cameramen and ask them if there's no creative work going on.
:(
The latest wii soccer game gives very good screenshots of the games. I'd say the way of handling the camera isn't actually creative, but algorithmic.
Unfortunately, that takes it from copyrightable to patentable
The difference, I guess, is that the bars have a specific legal exemption for public performances. Apparently churches don't.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4229536&page=1
None the less, I am not supporting the NFL's ban on showing the game on big screens. If people want to gripe that the NFL has some stupid rule about how big your TV can be, fine.
What I object to is that the issue is that CHURCHES can't do it. This attitude that churches should not have to play by the same rules as everyone else drives me up the wall. The suggestion that the legislature should amend federal law to create ANOTHER carve-out for churches is ridiculous.
paintball
The sad part is that if this church served anything stronger than Communion wine (to people who will be driving home after the game) and charged for it, the NFL would have no problem with them showing the game!
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One poster commented that the NFL has a hard time making money. Well, from the picture of the church property, it does not appear that the church has that problem. It would be nice if the NFL could scam as well as the average christian churches in America. Selective reading lets then demand a tithe, but forget that Jesus destroyed the temple due to money changers in the church. Have American flags and patriotic paraphernalia in the church, but do everything they can to avoid paying taxes, even on clearly profit making activities. Agree to certain political limitations in exchange for the tax exempt status, and then, like the hypocrite, ignore those limitations as they please.
Your perspective is just a little bit skewed. Giving to the church is entirely up to the person. So is going to that particular church. The Bible commands us to give 10% of our produce to the church so the leaders don't have to have a 40 hour job + 30 hour job coming up with a 30 minute speech every week. Now whether or not the people give to the church is entirely up to them and their conscience and God. It's close minded to think "because Scientology extorts money from its members, then all religions do". If you looked at the average salary of a youth pastor, pastor, etc; you'll find it's simply nowhere near enough to attract those in it for the money. There's a few pastors here and there that make a larger portion of money (such as Presbyterian pastersThis is nothing more than a whiny church complaining that once they are being held to rules of civilized society. I know it is a new experience for most churches, having to comply with the rule of law, but it happens. They can buy a smaller screen. They can choose not to have such a secular event in a sacred space, and forgo the tithe that members who are mostly interested in secular events might bring. They can, like most churches, have such secular events outside of the sacred space.
Believe it or not, there are people in the world who have motives other than making the most money possible--such as making money by helping others in the best way they know how. I don't know why people have to ascribe negative motives to people who say they just want to help others. Not everyone else is like you. Just because you don't want to help people doesn't mean there aren't other people who do want to help people in the same way they have found help.
are "advertising revenues affected?"
Multiple parishiners watch the game together at the church, when an ad occurs, anyone can watch or not watch the ads, as they desire.
The same set of people watch the game individually at home, when an ad appears, anyone can watch or not watch the ads, as they desire.
The game is being broadcast on the public airwaves. The NFL loses nothing when a group of people watch it together, regardless of where they are. If they don't want the general public to see the game, they should change to cable pay-per-view, and stop milking a public resource for profit.
It's time for a not-so-gentle reminder that contrary to the pontifications of "real" lawyers, growing your own crops is not Interstate Commerce, forcefully transferring land from one private party to another is not "public use," and preventing people from watching the Superbowl together at their church does not "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
And got crucified for it.
I have a feeling Roger Goodell is no Pontius Pilot.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
the championship of the sport we crazy Americans call football. You can tell it from the football of the rest of the world because in the US, the big hits, bloody noses, and violence is on the field, not in the stands...
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It is played in 101 countries. At least, that is the number of countries that play by the ICC rules. There may be more who play their own variations.
Let me first say this as clearly as possible. I do not support Bush in any way shape or form.
Corrupt Republicans? You must be about 17, maybe 18? The proper statement would be corrupt politicians. There is no political party that isnt corrupt, just ones in power and ones that aren't. The ones in power get called corrupt by the ones who aren't
That said,
WHAT THE FUCK IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR YOU PEOPLE TO REALIZE THE PRESIDENT DOESN'T MAKE THE LAWS?!
CONGRESS decides if a bill will become law. The president can ONLY prevent them by veto, in which case congress can STILL get them passed/changed if its important/profitable enough.
Stop being so retarded and looking at the president as the guy who matters and start paying attention to your congress men/women. THEY are the ones who make the laws. THEY can control the president more so than he can control them. Congress has the power to stop the war in Iraq for instance, but they don't REALLY want to, they just want to LOOK like they do so you don't replace them with somebody who will.
They are the ones who CAN put them into effect.
You want to bitch about a republican congress, fine. You should probably go back over the last 8 years and take a close look at how many democrats voted right along the same direction as the republicans as well. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm simply saying you act like one politician is different from another. Most of the ones that voted against the majority only do it because they know its a safe pass/fail anyway and it makes them look better to their voters.
And learn how your goverment works for fucks sake, also stop being such a twit that you think politicians are different because of the political party they claim.
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I can't show movies to raise money for my non-profit (even if a donation is not required for viewing) unless I pay the copyright holders a fee. I don't see why a church should have a different set of rules.
The movie you were showing was going to come off of a DVD though. If you got a group together in a room and turned on the TV to Channel 10's Sunday afternoon showing of Sister Act with Ultramatic commercials every 10 minutes, why should that matter? It's being broadcast over the public airwaves and intended for viewing by the public. As far as I can see, the only people who lose out on anything are the TV manufacturers. And they only lose out on sales to the small subset of people who would have bought a large TV to watch the Super Bowl on, but decided not to because the church had one to watch it on. And I suspect that that is a very small group of people.
Naismith was indeed Canadian, but the game of basketball was invented in a Massachusetts YMCA. And, nobody really thinks of basketball as a Canadian sport (unlike ice hockey, which probably was invented in Canada and maintains a large Canadian fanbase).
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
When you know the commercials are going to be promoting vices, why not replace them with messages promoting virtues? To substitute the Slashdot religion, so that everyone here will understand, if there was an annual event on TV that millions of people watched and where all the ads were for M$ products, wouldn't you want to assemble groups to show the program to but substitute what was according to your religion more positive choices?
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Also in clause 1, you highlight the phrase, but while the churches are "nonprofit" it doesn't seem like this would qualify as "educational purpose" (at least that's not what the football is for - it's just to get people in the door). It seems more like a nonprofit advertising or a not-for-profit commercial-style use, since it is essentially being used to promote the value of and awareness of the services rendered by the nonprofit organization.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the law here is
For a very rarified group. My sister was "in The Business" (as she pronounces it)(film/ad business, that is), yet never notes the commercials. Neither does anyone else that I have met in person. All of them view it as either (1) a potentially interesting game (2) a good excuse for a party, like Cinco De Mayo is an excuse for tequilla, or (3) MUST SEE TV, as OUR TEAM is playing. Having grown up in the Pittsburgh, PA area during the Steelers Dynasty of the 1970s, I can understand this, even if I might not feel it (except two years ago, when WE WON!!!!! :-).
I would point out that broadcast TV is payed for by ad agencies bying airtime for their clients, so NOT making a big deal about the commercials on the Today Show, or the like, would be biting the hand that feeds them, and thus not done.