And now, this breaking news just in from our redundancy is redundant department:
You've heard it hundreds, if not thousands, of times during a broadcast of one sporting event or another . . . the announcement that any rebroadcast or retransmission of the program is illegal without the exclusive written consent of one professional sports league or another. However, did you know that the airing of that copyright notice is actually protected under copyright as well? I didn't, and neither did law professor Wendy Seltzer. She posted a sample of the NFL's copyright notice on YouTube to show her students how far these notices go in exaggerating their rights.
Well, it turns out that the NFL (okay, the NFL's lawyers most likely) caught this on YouTube and forcibly demanded politely asked that the company remove it from their site. This is despite the fact that Seltzer was using the clip as a teaching tool, which is legal under the U.S. Fair Use Code. The lesson learned here is that you can't copy a copyright notice that it copyrighted by its own copyright notice. Wait, what did I write?
[A hearty thanks to Wild Bill for the tip.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-23-2007 @ 1:35PM
Derek said...
What wasn't mentioned here is that the NFL could be sanctioned for filing too many DMCA takedown notices.
More info here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070320-nfl-fumbles-dmca-takedown-battle-could-face-sanctions.html
Reply
3-23-2007 @ 1:36PM
Bill said...
Hmm... you're a little behind on this story.
http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/DMCA.html
To summarize: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act provides a specific procedure for copyright infringements. If a person or company finds material online that they think is infringing to their copyrights, they send a notice to the host of the material (which the NFL sent to YouTube a while back). If the person who posted the material believes it to not be infringing, they send a counter-notice (which Ms. Seltzer sent on 2/15). At this point, the only options for the copyright holder are to let the material stay online or to go to court. However, the NFL sent another takedown notice, in apparent violation of the law, which YouTube complied with (either because they get too many takedown notices to keep track of, or because they're currently being sued for billions and are now paranoid about copyright).
http://popculturejunk.blogspot.com/
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3-23-2007 @ 2:02PM
Icheb said...
Did someone forget to hit the submit on this story last month or why did it appear here just now? Was all over the net a long time ago.
Reply
3-23-2007 @ 5:12PM
victor said...
my head hurts.
Reply
3-24-2007 @ 11:20PM
InL.A. said...
Dear NFL,
Shut-up.
Truly,
Bureaucratic B.S.
Reply