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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
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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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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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.
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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.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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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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.
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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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?
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