Will Your Super Bowl Party Anger the Copyright Gods? 560
garg0yle writes "According to some folks, watching the Super Bowl on a television bigger than 55 inches is illegal. Is this true? Yes and no — long story short, if you're in a private residence you're probably okay, but if you're running a sports bar you may technically have to negotiate a license with the NFL. Just don't charge for food, or call it a 'Super Bowl' party, since the term itself is copyright."
Your Honor... (Score:4, Interesting)
The term itself...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just don't charge for food, or call it a 'Super Bowl' party, since the term itself is copyright."
I'd like to hear a lawyer stand up and say that with a straight face. Trademarked? Possibly. Copyright? Not likely. And even it was a registered mark, I fail to see what food has to do with anything, or how it would be actionable unless the rightsholder is organising similar events that might be confused with whatever private viewing we're talking about here.
Go look at the NFL versus Louisiana over Who dat (Score:5, Interesting)
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2010/02/halftime-who-dat-whos-greedy-the-nfl/1 [usatoday.com]
You missed the one important part, anywhere there is money involved there will be claims. The NFL is claiming ownership of a fan derived saying, let alone one where most of it has been part of the dialect
Never under estimate money, lawyers, and stupidity, combined.
Re:Old news (Score:5, Interesting)
Doubtful... (Score:5, Interesting)
...my Super Bowl party is going to involve games of Chez Geek, Hero Quest, and a Civ 4 LAN.
Anything remotely related to Football is banned.
Minority Sports Don't Matter (Score:2, Interesting)
Who cares about Super Bowl, it is no longer the single most watched sports event :)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/3280912/Champions-League-final-tops-Super-Bowl-in-TV [stuff.co.nz]
Re:Ok NFL, I can take a hint (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey, advertisers -- you really want to get people's attention? Rather than waste money on a super bowl ad, rent out some cheap billboard slots in major markets saying something like "rather than spend $15,000,000 on a 30-second TV commercial, we donated $14,000,000 to Haiti instead". Or, even better... just do it and not tell us about it because doing the right thing isn't about getting recognition for it.
NFL sued a church last year (Score:3, Interesting)
A church advertised a Super Bowl party, in which they weren't charging a dime to attend. It didn't stop the NFL lawyers from descending.
All major leagues also have the statement that not only can you not rebroadcast, but you can't disseminate or report on the game without their written, express consent.
You apparently don't have the right to talk about the game. Way to be fan-friendly.
Re:Ok NFL, I can take a hint (Score:4, Interesting)
Only 11 minutes of a 185 minute NFL broadcast include actual play [wsj.com]
So you're not missing out on any action, trust me. :)
Re:Old news (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can't copyright a term (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is completely unenforceable, since you're allowed to use trademarks for the purpose of referring to the item. Meaning that they might get upset about you calling it a "Super Bowl party" but if you have a party where you watch the "Super Bowl" there isn't really anything they can do about it.
It may be unenforceable, but the NFL has been making a lot of noise about this for some time. They seem to count on the fact that a lot of small businesses will just cow-tow to them after a phone call from a lawyer.
I noticed in our local newspaper yesterday there was an ad from a sports bar - the phrase "Super Bowl" was nowhere to be seen. The biggest text was "Come watch the Big Game with us!", and some other text referred to their "Big Game Party".
Re:Old news (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing is, I dare the super-bowl to try and attack some of the clients I helped set up a super-bowl party for. One is a big time lawyer who will have 2 150" screens and 5 62" plasmas all blasting the game for his 100 guests. He's a lawyer for a firm that will eat the NFL for lunch and crap in their cheerios.
I honestly will gladly allow them to copyright the hell out of it IF they play in arenas that were not built by any public funds. Otherwise everything NFL must be Public domain.
I hope it does. (Score:3, Interesting)
NFL Fan: "Hey, Joe's Pub has a 60" TV, and they're going to have the Big Game on. Sweet! Ten friends and I are gonna have a great time there!"
NFL Management: "Alert! Fans watching our games in public without our express written consent. We've clearly just lost MILLIONS in revenue because of this. If only our viewers understood the logic of... uh, ummm, ah... Hey, why DO we prohibit this? It brings people together to enjoy our product, stimulates the economy by bringing patrons to bars and casual dining restaurants, and generally helps promote what we do without costing us anything in advertising expenses."
NFL Lawyer: "So I can have a job."
Re:Old news (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not nearly so simple. The legal landscape and market are very complicated. For example, if you changed the law to allow public showings of consumer-aimed DVDs, that will cut into the separately-marketed and priced versions currently legal for such use. Thus, the $15 DVD you can currently buy will go up in price to offset the lost revenue. So in some sense, the reason you can buy a "reasonably" priced copy of the movie is that its production is subsidized by the other market.
I'm not saying it's right, but you really shouldn't be so knee-jerk about this. The content producers and providers do need channels to make money, and while I generally agree that copyright laws are a mess right now, taking away every method they have to be profitable is not a solution for anything. All the slashdot wankery aside, this is a big problem: how do you maintain a viable production industry when their product becomes free to copy. For music or live theater, you can wave your hands about performance revenues, etc, but there's not an equivalent for movies or television programs. Most of the simplistic stuff thrown around here is a joke in this regard. A whole self-consistent system needs to be constructed. That's hard.
Re:Ok NFL, I can take a hint (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Old news (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Old news (Score:3, Interesting)
you're using other peoples entertainment content to create a nicer place, which in turn creates you income.
No, you're using entertainment you *paid for* in a way that suits you. No different than buying a carpet to put on the floor to create a nicer place. That particular instantiation of the carpet design (which isn't yours) is yours by right of purchase. Nobody gets to tell you who can walk on it, admire it while doing whatever it is people are doing in the nice place. They can't even tell you that are not allowed to charge people admission to see the carpet (should you be able to convince enough people to do so). Just because the purchased item is labeled "entertainment content" does not mean it is magically different from any other item you can purchase*. The law as currently (mis)implemented may say so, but that doesn't mean the law is correct and shouldn't be changed. Stop making excuses for a practice that isn't even in your own best interests, or at least limit the degree of willing subjugation to yourself and stop trying to convince others to join you as you give up your rights.
* And don't start talking about how "it's licensed, not bought" either. Try to tell someone the carpet they bought is "licensed, not bought" and see if you can finish talking before they start laughing and throw you off of their "purchased, not licensed" property.