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Copyright, the NFL, and YouTube

You pander to one reader, you've got to pander to the other.

And so my attention turns to a potential copyright violation by the NFL. If you haven't heard, a law professor named Wendy Seltzer posted a video clip of the copyright notice that aired at the end of the Super Bowl on YouTube. The NFL said, "Hey! Copying our copyright notice is copyright infringement!" and sent YouTube a notice to take it down. YouTube took it down.

Since she's a law professor, and this was intended for educational purposes, Seltzer figured it was fair use, and counter-notified YouTube. (The blog article where I first saw this link to her blog several times, and you can find more/better details there.) The NFL again asked YouTube to take it down, ignoring the fair use notice. Seltzer argues that, under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, that the NFL's request was, itself, illegal.

That's pretty much the whole story. It's not big news so much as it is cute, but it'd be funny if the NFL got in some kind of legal trouble for this.

I also like it because its goes along well with some things I've read lately. Basically, I think copyright law, and especially the DMCA (I like the term "Domination by Media Corporations Act"), goes too far in many cases. It's just nice to see a big company punished for once.

I'm not sure why the NFL and other sports organzations/figures are so bothered by YouTube in the first place. I loved being able to look up Walter Payton highlights or Steve Atwater's hit on Christian Okoye last year. Granted, their No. 1 goal isn't making me happy, but I didn't see the harm considering I'd have a hard time buying that stuff even if I wanted to. I don't know if anyone's read Mark Cuban's blog lately, but the man is definitely losing his mind over YouTube. I don't get it. He got lucky and got rich on the Internet-why does he hate it so much when someone else does the same?

Comments

John said…
Marvelous pandering. I can't believe the NFL noticed or cared that its copyright notice was posted on YouTube, but, then again, I know lots of big companies that get all obsessive about their intellectual property rights. What's even more baffling is how a posting on YouTube can be educational - I mean, posting on a class website or a professor's blog might qualify, but posting on YouTube seems like a stretch.

I'm afriad YouTube's days as a free site are numbered - pretty soon, it will have to pull a Napster, make a deal with the copyright holders, and start charging. Which, as you say, is unfortunate, because I don't see the NFL (or any other sport league) going out of its way to make old highlights available to fans.
11:42 AM
Mike said…
Well, using YouTube makes sense, as they pay for all the bandwidth, etc. It could have been that she put it on YouTube and then embedded it in her own site...which, it turns out, is exactly what she did.

You can see her post here, though the clip is still down on that page.

I don't know if that matters in terms of the legal argument and, of course, it seems like she was trying to pick a fight here. Fine with me, but how does that play in court, Cap?

Napster...good ol' Napster. You have to love that "incompatible with iPod" strategy.
1:52 PM
David said…
mark cubans blog was about as interesting as reading steven hawking's love letters.
3:57 PM
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