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The NFL Wants You To Think These Things Are Illegal
An anonymous reader writes: Professional sports have become a minefield of copyright and trademark issues, and no event moreso than the Super Bowl. Sherwin Siy of Public Knowledge has an article debunking some of the things the NFL has convinced people they can't do, even through they're perfectly legal. For example, you've probably heard the warning about how "descriptions" and "accounts" of the game are prohibited without the NFL's consent. That's all hogwash: "The NFL would be laughed out of court for trying to prevent them from doing so—just because you have a copyright in a work doesn't mean you can prevent people from talking about it. Copyright simply doesn't extend that far." Recording the game and watching it later is just fine, too.
So, will you be paying attention to the game today? Ignoring it? Practicing your cultivated disinterest?
So, will you be paying attention to the game today? Ignoring it? Practicing your cultivated disinterest?
how desperate for a story has /. become
The article misses the big point here: regardless of whether or not what you do is actually illegal, the NFL may very well sue you anyway. It's illegal in practice even if not in the books.
to not give a fsck about the superbole in particular of even (american) football in general
?
I will be practicing the modern tradition of ruining any chance of enjoying the game by attending a SuperBowl party. Ostensibly a gathering to watch a championship sporting event, the SuperBowl party actually results in a gathering of families where the game is on a television that happens to be in the same location. Every now and then someone will exclaim and attention will divert to a big play that just happened, but for the most part the wives' small talk and rounding up the kids will occupy the fathers attention. Except when the commercials come on. For some reason the wives are really interested in the commercials, so they'll stop everything and have everyone be quiet for at least some of the commercials.
At least there will be lots of finger food and drinks.
Wrong. The NFL says the BROADCAST descriptions and accounts are copyrighted. Plenty of other places have their own accounts and descriptions.
When NFL says "Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game"
They are not referring to you talking to your friends about the game or even you authoring an original description and publishing it.
They are essentially saying any descriptions or accounts given in the telecast or personal accounts written by staff under contract to create them are protected, which they are.
You are not allowed to copy a description or account from the telecast and reuse their description or account beyond what fair use allows, as it is subject to copyright just like the images, video, and live audio.
The author totally skips over the first sentence ""This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience" and then points out all of the things that a private citizen can do.
Duh.
Whatever NFL is doing sounds very much like MAFIAA has been doing to everybody for the past 2 decades or so --- one FUD after another
Tha MAFIAA violates the law more times than anyone can count - including demanding people's totally legitimate videos to be pulled down from youtube, mailing threatening letters to innocent party who never commit any music / video pirating, filing DCMA on legitimate contents online, and so on
Munroe has the right idea:
Hooray for snacks!
Football like all sports are for the mindless masses to keep the complacent. I gave up my TV 20 years ago and don't poison my brain with any dribble other than slashdot.
This is because the NFL is not an ordinary business. It is a cartel of independent teams. Such cartels, for example OPEC, are illigal in the US since 1890 but is allowed through special acts of congress. This allows it to set rules for all teams, set TV contracts, and set pay scales without any competition.
This leads to the ability to generate profits only available to socialist organizations. For instance, excessively high payment from TV networks require excessively high fees to cable providers which are paid by all cable subscribers, even if they never watch the channel. The cartel is also able to leverage national monies to convince localities to force taxpayer to fund stadiums, even if those that are never going to use the stadiums. These monies then go into individual pockets as profits.
I have heard people saying the same about music halls, but there is certainly no national cartel of music lovers that bribe local officials, that transfers the risk of the building from a for profit organization the taxpayer.
There are other costs to society. Because the rules are set, public tax dollars can be used to train kids for the NFL through public school funds. Because salaries are set, the players, though well paid, do not have the ability to truly negotiate a contract. Recall that tech firms have gotten in trouble for this, even though the employees were generally well paid.
And of course there is a fundamental loss to a society that depends on the free market that kids are taught about fair play and rules within a socialist construct where there is in fact a rule book and powerful referees. While this is useful for a 10 year old, it is disastrous when an adult goes into a work place believing her or his life is really going to be controlled by a rule book. It kills innovation and creativity. At leas in baseball you can steal a base. The immaturity of football can be characterized by the fact that everyone got their panties in bunch over deflate gate. In the real free market world that would just be considered a necessary cost of doing business.
Which is to say that the NFL basically lives within it's own bubble. It has the ability to bribe congress, or throw enough lawyers at the problem, to bend the rules no matter what previous legislation or case law says.
And I don't think the NFL is a natural cartel, like the electric company. I think real competition, not the fake thing taught to kids by the NFL structure and games, is good. I don't think sports fans are nearly as dumb as the average sports cartel thinks they are. The current structure is merely a way to maximize profit at taxpayer expense, and to create a world where fundamental rights are infringed for the sake of the bottom line or a corporation.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The DMCA claim itself is the citation, the whole mandatory "under the penalty of perjury" part of it, you know.
Where the article claims that intellectuals compete over their ignorance of sports, non-intellectuals compete over their ignorance of math or other subjects as well. Some people in any cultural subgroup will do things like this as a means of establishing their cultural identity. It's not that big of a deal.
Why is it important to me that I should be able to instantly bond with members of the "working class?" (I work, everyone I know works, what the article means is "lower class"). In my personal experience (mostly in college and shortly thereafter), plenty of lower class people also spend what little money they have on street drugs and excessive alcohol while voicing hatred for the wealthy. Such people are not only uninteresting to me bug outright dangerous. I am very glad I pulled myself out of that culture, and I have no interest in spending more time with such people than I have to.
If I am to force myself to become interested in something that I naturally find boring, I am going to need better incentive than "but you can make friends with people you don't normally want to be friends with!"
To successfully sue somebody, you still have to actually show how that party had actually done some sort of wrong by you... and them simply saying that it is wrong doesn't actually make it so. They would still need to convince a judge of that.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Its 100 million people who who need exercise watching 22 guys who don't*.
*Then again .....
Don't mind me. I'm just here so I won't get fined.
Have gnu, will travel.
Not to mention the article is full of crap because if the NFL SAYS its illegal? Then it is...because they can afford a million dollar legal team with "experts" and research teams that can keep you in court for the next decade and you? you can't.
For several decades now the only ones that have been able to go against an ubercorp is another ubercorp and the reason why is obvious, you send your local yokel lawyer against their dream team he is gonna be utterly demolished. Then you figure in the fact that they won't have to give up work to be in court, won't have to worry where their next check comes from,and even if they lose they can afford to keep the appeals going for another decade, can you? Unless your last name is Gates or Buffet? Not likely.
This is why I've said for years we have to have a serious overhaul of our legal system because as it is now if you go against a megacorp (or the state) you are a junior HS football team and they are the Denver Broncos, doesn't matter if you claim the game itself is "fair" because in the end they have access to talent and resources leagues above anything you can possibly muster.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Dying is for quitters.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
TV these days is pretty bad. I can't remember the last time a show caught my interest.
I can: Firefly was excellent.
Actually, there's a few more that are more recent that I've found interesting as well:
- (Star Trek) Enterprise: this was surprisingly good (I only watched it last year, after it was already 10 years old), except for the 3rd season Xindi plot arc which I found rather annoying. The first two seasons were very good though.
- Big Bang Theory: I've only watched the first two seasons so far, but it's actually very funny, something I've never really found in a sitcom before. I guess it being about physicists instead of typical average morons helps a lot this way.
- Game of Thrones: this one really shouldn't require an explanation.
There are three reasons we keep cable:
1) American Pickers (I know Netflix has it, but we've seen all of those and it's our relax-without-thinking show that we look forward to sitting down together each week once the kids are asleep)
2) Walking Dead (Ditto Netflix, although I don't know how current they are. That said, I'm increasingly becoming decreasingly interested in the show)
3) It costs $10 more to get Internet access without also getting cable.
Bark less. Wag more.
Sports are actually very exciting to watch, as well as participate in. You should try it sometime.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.