Category: Mass Communication Law

Copyright “Under NFL Rule”

Under NFL Rule, Media Web Sites Are Given Just 45 Seconds to Score – washingtonpost.com

From the organization that brought you the exaggerated “Any other use of this telecast … without the NFL’s consent, is prohibited.” statement at the end of every game, the NFL has imposed new rules on news organizations.

News organizations can post no more than 45 seconds per day of video shot at a team’s facilities, including news conferences, interviews and practice-field reports.

While outcome of a legal dispute can never be clear, “news reporting” is an explicitly stated fair use under section 107. Some parallels might also be drawn to the “human cannonball” case, Zacchini vs. Scripps-Howard. While this was really a right-of-publicity case, the majority makes a statement close to the issues here:

Wherever the line in particular situations is to be drawn between media reports that are protected and those that are not, we are quite sure that the First and Fourteenth Amendments do not immunize the media when they broadcast a performer’s entire act without his consent.

To me, 45 seconds constitutes quite a bit less than an entire act. However, there is a more interesting social angle to this story.

The NCAA, for example, recently generated controversy by booting a reporter out of the press box at a college baseball playoff game.

Beyond what is happening in copyright-like rulemaking, the NFL is able to enforce these extra-legal rules by social control.

Legal experts say the policies do not violate any laws, because the NFL is entitled to establish the terms of access to its privately owned facilities.

This appears to be true (unless interviews occur on public streets). It might be the NFL is able to hold news organizations to these limits because of an unstated understanding that they could loose access to coaches, players, and facilities if the limits are exceeded.

Control over copyright can be strong, but combining it with social efforts to control are often even stronger.

Infringing parody?

A Spurned Parody of ‘Die Hard’ Returns to YouTube, Approved – New York Times

Here’s an interesting story of an “infringing” parody.

The story seems familiar to online video users: fans create a parody video using pirated studio content and post it on YouTube, and the studio’s lawyers quickly have it removed for violating copyright law. But this time the studio’s marketing team relented —and even paid the fans to repost their video.

First, the story assumes that the material that went into the material is “pirated,” despite the fact that parody is a well-established fair use. Not having seen the video, I can’t comment on how infringing it might be, but the opening of the story seems to convey that any use of copyrighted material is “piracy.”

This is also another interesting case of how user created content is finding its way into the mainstream… at least in this case the creators were paid for their efforts (plus being able to use and display the materials, plus the exposure gained by this story).

Net Neutrality Debate Again Descends Into Shouting, Farce

Techdirt: Net Neutrality Debate Again Descends Into Shouting, Farce

Techdirt: Net Neutrality Debate Again Descends Into Shouting, Farce

Techdirt is, perhaps accurately, decrying the “not wholly accurate, ideological soundbites [argued] from both sides” in the network neutrality debate. This issue is so technically and socially complicated, that it is quite surprising to me that debate tends to become two sided.

Besides the technical issues of how a “neutral” network might work and the economic issues of stimulating innovation while giving network owners incentive to expand their network, there are a host of other social issues to consider. These include comparisons with other similar historical circumstances, addressing concerns of privacy on the network, and analyses of network penetration and the incentives that providers have to limit access.

Perhaps the net neutrality debate needs a forum where experts on all facets of the issue can contribute to our understanding of the problem.

Discussion of Gillespie’s “Wired Shut”

One of the issues we discussed a bit was the “irrational fears” on the part of content industries (specifically motion picture and music) that all of their sources of revenue will disappear absent some forms of digital rights protection. I wonder if there is also perhaps “irrational fear” on the part of those of us who worry about potential for rights lost through technological changes proposed by the content industry (myself absolutely included!).Yet, between these two “irrational fears,” there may be some value in the dialog that is taking place. Copyright law and technological standards evolve so slowly that finding a compromise between these two seemingly polar positions might be an important part in the production of law and social consensus (despite the drawbacks inherent in law made through compromise).

Further, I’m personally interested in the role that this dialog plays in informing the public about copyright law, and in its role creating norms of compliance. Do people listen to the Valentis and Gillespies of the copyright debate? How do their arguments impact their actions? If the “average Joe” isn’t listening, are those who can really make an impact listening (legislators, academics, creative types, industry people)? What impact does it have on them, and any potential policy?

[This post is part of a summer reading group, following a discussion of Tarleton Gillespie’s Book Wired Shut.]