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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."
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?
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.
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
HAHAHA! Where is their God NOW?!
This is to keep church members from seeing 56 inch nipples.
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The Super Bowl is straight-up ole regular network TV. As the article mentions, all that this really affects is TV ratings (since fewer sets are showing the game). You must be European if you expect American TV ratings or copyright to make any kind of sense!
Is the Super Bowl pay per view
Nope. It's on Fox. In fact, Fox is free over the air. The problem they have with it, is that instead of lets say 4 people per 1 TV, they might have 40 people per 1 TV, where there would have been 40 people split using 10 different TVs. I think ratings are only affected if Neilsen homes aren't watching it though. So it all really comes down to ratings. They'd rather see 10 homes watching the SB rather than 1 church.
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
What!? As an american it is our duty to watch the super bowl. And as good god fearing men we are obligated to, that's why it's on Sunday. Now come on people let's follow the rules, there is nothing better than a day of bowling, especially super bowling... now when is it on?
It's on free-to-air TV. It shouldn't matter who's watching. Got a TV? Got an aerial? That's all you really need. It's not copying, no copy's being made, so what the hell does copyright have to do with anything? It would be a breach of copyright if someone was mastering videos during the game to hand out to the people in attendance...otherwise, they're just thumping their chests like the 900 lb. gorillas they are.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
And got crucified for it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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!!
So can they be sued for false advertising if they have a commercial that shows more than four people watching football together? If it is illegal to "use their product" in that way, are beer commercials that show large numbers of people over at a person's house enjoying the game together promoting copyright violation?
We are all just people.
(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