Slashdot Mirror
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.
Is this now a yearly tradition for churches to whine about their Superbowl parties...
Here is last years article same story, different church:
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/category/miami-football/2007/02/01/nfl-orders-church-to-cancel-super-bowl-party/
They are in no way creative works. What "original authorship" exists? "Copyright shelters only fixed, original and creative expression," which a football game isn't.
Furthermore, to be copyrighted, a work must be fixed into a "tangible medium." That is not the case for a live broadcast (although it might be for an after-the-fact replay).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If I have a 60" TV, and no one is around to watch it, does it violate copyright?
The NFL is a large corporation. Corporations prefer to use lawyers and scary sounding letters rather than the coppers. It's a lot harder to put a scary sounding letter on television than a bunch of cops busting up a church.
AccountKiller
Religion and football...two things that I couldn't possibly care less about. I hope they obliterate each other in a spectacular orgy of litigation.
I read Usenet for the articles.
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.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
All the churches need are liquor licenses. They can sell communion wine and hot wings. Insta-church-sports bar. Eat that NFL. No one fucks with the Jesus.
Someone hates these cans.
I'm glad I've never had an interest in organized sports. Such naked greed needs to be recognized by the medical profession as the mental illness that it is, and treated as such.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
I heard it's something about sports they're crazy about in the USA, even more than the world cup in soccer, believe it or not! It's supposedly about bowling. :-p
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The real WTF is, people in the USA watch football in churches? How the fuck is that not somehow blasphemous?
In some parts of the U.S., football is the dominant religion.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
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.
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
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.
This is to keep church members from seeing 56 inch nipples.
..."Thou shalt not watch 'the big game'"?
Remember, you can't use the name unless you cough up money to the NFL! It's trademarked!
God obviously endorses the NFL. Look how many players are praying to him before, during, and after every game. It's a poor move on the NFL's part to slight Jesus in this manner.
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
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.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
Is it still a 56" TV if there is a 1/2 inch strip of tape or something around the edge of the screen?
God invented duct tape for a reason.
What's with all this anger against the Church for showing the free over the air transmission for free to Church members and members of the community? They are not even charging admission! Where is the outrage against the sports bars who are profiting from the display of the Superbowl?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
So, If they're a bar open to anyone who might stagger in, it doesn't count as public, but if they're a church and some of their members watch it's a pub;lic performance?
That could get complicated FAST. If they roll the TV into the minister's house and he invites all his friends to a superbowl party is that OK? How about if they watch it in the church, but instead of the big TV, they each watch on a personal portable TV is that OK? If they all hop on one foot with a potato(e) strapped onto their heads while they watch, will that be OK?
If indeed greed is a mortal sin, I guess the NFL's leadership better get used to the smell of brimstone.
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.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Both of Britain's main sports (Football and Cricket) are played quite widely internationally, yet American football does not seem to have taken the world by storm. I suppose one consolation of this is that the US always wins, but wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate all those resources on games that are more popular internationally?
:)
Come to think of it, the other main US sport, Baseball, is not hugely popular around the world either. According to Wikipedia it is less popular than volleyball and table tennis. Maybe the US is onto something here. Perhaps we can copy this idea in Britain. We need to ditch the sports we keep losing at, like soccer, and invent a new one that nobody is interested in. Then we will finally be world champions
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.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
All the sports bars have multiple smaller TVs scattered throughout their premises. The churches should just borrow/rent/buy a few dozen 50" TVs and scatter them strategically throughout their halls. Maybe clergy can suggest that parishoners tithe their forthcoming Gommint "Save the Economy and Buy Stuff Now" checks to the task. In your face, NFL! Anyone know of a good dip recipe that goes with communion wafers?
All the really great sigs are already taken.
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
Would they prosecute, though? What are their damages? Would it be worth the negative PR?
It's easy for me to say this, but if I were one of the elders of that Church I would encourage the congregation to watch together anyway. I'd call the NFL's bluff. Jesus was a pretty rebellious and rock the boat sort of guy. He didn't back down from the Roman's or Pharisees, he told people how it was, associated with unwed women and whores, and scared those in power. It's hard to imagine that a guy who was so brazen to cost him his life would balk at the threat of a lawsuit. He'd watch the game with his brethren, dammit!
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
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!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
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.
And got crucified for it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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
Actually, and I kid you not, the fundamentalist southern baptist church that I went to when I was younger and still under the thumb of my parents did exactly what you're saying.
Seriously, they figured that people would be watching the superbowl, and that's UNACCEPTABLE! Why? BECAUSE THE ADS ARE FOR BEER. Can't have good christians watching advertisements with frogs saying "Bud", now can we? So they showed the superbowl up on the wall of the gathering area at the church with a projector, and during the commercials, they'd instead air mini-commercials about jesus that the youth group had put together.
Yeah. No joke. Wild.
~Wx
sig?
The best thing this church could do is call the NFL's bluff and play the game anyway!
Let's consider the worst scenario, the NFL does sue. So what?!?! Odds are that the NFL will lose and then there is a good chance the church could counter-sue and reclaim any costs incurred.
But, let's be realistic, it would be a PR suicide attempt for the NFL to sue a church. The only thing the church could do better then simply showing the game would be to bus in a load of poor, handicapped, cancer-inflicted children from broken homes. I'd like to see the NFL sue that!!
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...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The word you want in that context is "averse", not "adverse". This has not been a flame, just a helpful comment. I make no promise for what follows this post. :-)
...that may apply.
Some of you guys may help me remember the details, but this was years ago and it had to do with receiving HBO and "ON-TV" (remember them?) via home made antenna or big sat dish. HBO and ON were both originally available in many areas using a special antenna. This was pre-cable tv, but not by much. The signal was scrambled by not by much. I recall a little 9 volt dc block adapter powered unit that went in-line on the coax from the antenna that could decode it. By todays standards, it wasn't encryption at all, more obscurity than security. I think the picture was shifted half way over, and the end that went off screen was prepended to the other side or something.
Anyway, you could get it that way or your could catch the feed as it went across the big sats as that was completely open. Ah, the days before DRM.
As I recall, the supreme court ruled then that if you could receive it out of the air and not have to descramble it, then you were within your rights to watch it. If I'm remembering it accurately, and if it hasn't been reversed, then the NFL's only actionable complaint would by with the networks for not protecting the copyrighted material. This is even more true if you're watching it by using an antenna and HD tuner rather than cable tv.
Ok, flame the crap out of me for being wrong or outdated now. I'm putting my gnomex hood on and donning SCBA...
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Support SETI@home
Church-going folks overwhelmingly voted for the corrupt Republicans that allowed copyright to take on these excessive forms in the first place. I say: throw the book at them. Sue them for criminal copyright infringement. Maybe once they get a taste of their own medicine, they'll think twice before voting another Bush into office.
Obviously, the NFL wants fewer people watching their game and the advertisements. I will help them out by not watching the game or the ads.
qz
In other words, this law carves out explicit permission for restaurants to have a television, which otherwise would be a copyright violation. It does not rescind fair use. Recall fair use as described by U.S. Code Title 17 Section 107 (emphasis added):
(emphasis added)
They're correctly reading the law, as sad as it might be. Now, the law here is ridiculous, there's NO question in my mind about that. There are plenty of other ridiculous provisions in there just like this one. Alas, we have the best laws money can buy
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Do you go to the bathroom during commercials? Thief!
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
The summary is misleading; it says sports bars are exempt. In fact, they are not, they have a special commercial agreement.
The reason for not allowing more than x-amount of people is that it is assumed that the only reason you get that many people together to watch something, you are making money on it and they can't have anyone making profit on their product without getting some of the action! In the case of sports bars that profit would be from selling food and drink. In the case of a church it must be the collection tray. The reason is the same as just buying a CD doesn't mean you can play it in a venue without paying further royalties.
The moral of the story is that if you get that many people in one room, you *should* be making profit and you not doing so is not the NFLs problem. Pay up or send all the folks to other venues that do make a profit on it and pay the NFL what is rightfully theirs.
What a blood suckers.
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
The same issues came up during the soccer world championchips. (FIFA tried to sell licenses for public viewing) Here is how they were resolved in Europe. 1. A soccer game is not an original work in the sense of copyright law. As the landlord of the stadion they can control who puts up cameras there, but there is no copyright on the games themselves as they are lacking the creative process. (When I thing about it, wrestling matches might fall under copyright) 2. The TV shows produced by the people owning the cameras in the stadion falls under copyright law. They license this for broadcasting to TV stations. 3. The copyright law in germany protects an explicit list of actions that needs to be licensed like "public performace", "distribution", "broadcasting", "copying". The assumption is that any act can be classified as one and only one of these categories. Live TV viewing requires a "broadcasting" license paid for by the TV company. Turning on the TV in a public place does not make it an additional "public performce" as the broadcasting is public anyway. If record it onto tape. (copying) and replay it later in public you are doing a "public performce". But watching while the show is aired requires only the "broadcasting" license. This was tested in court and it makes perfectly sense to me.
Well, I guess my problem is why that could ever be a violation to begin with. You see, if it's coming over the air, I don't think it should be a "violation" no matter what. I could *barely* see it if it were Pay-Per View or something, but for freely accessible things, I don't think it should be *possible* to violate copyright law merely by tuning in. And I really don't give a damn if someone manages to make a buck or two off of that by providing folks with a nice, big TV to watch it on. It's the TV they're paying for, after all, NOT the TV show.
Just more expectation setting, I guess. They won't rake us over the coals, just one coal, and it will only be red hot, not white hot. As if that's some kind of consolation, when they shouldn't be raking people over the coal(s) at all...
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.