Blogger Removed From NCAA Game for Blogging 302
CNet is reporting that a blogger from the Courier-Journal of Louisville, KY was recently ejected from an NCAA game for live-blogging. "According to the Courier-Journal, staff blogger Brian Bennett was approached by NCAA officials in the fifth inning of a game between the University of Lousville and Oklahoma State, told that blogging 'from an NCAA championship event "is against NCAA policies (and) we're revoking the (press) credential and need to ask you to leave the stadium."'"
"In Soviet America"? Please. (Score:5, Insightful)
First, let's get this out of the way: this is the NCAA, not the government.
Second, let's go to TFA:
The Courier-Journal said that the University of Louisville sent out a memo from NCAA manager of broadcasting Jeramy Michiaels, prior to Friday's game. The memo said, in essence, that no blogging was allowed during the game.
Check.
But Bennett had not been approached after live-blogging previous games in the playoffs.
Oh, so then it must be okay? Talk about a non-story. The guy just got caught violating a policy that he knew about and probably even agreed to as a person with press credentials.
This was a person who wasn't removed for "blogging", but a person with press credentials who was providing live coverage of the event.
The NCAA naturally wants to control access to live (and recorded) broadcasts of games (and currently has the legal right to do so), whether they be video, audio, or even text. How or why is "blogging" magically different or protected?
Could someone set up a radio broadcast station from within an NCAA event without arranging the necessary licensing with the teams and the NCAA? Could someone do the same with a cell phone and broadcast it to a pirate radio station? Sure. The answer is you can do it if you don't get caught. Conspiracy theorists will wail about how it's all about money and control, just another example of censorship in our corporate/government-controlled police state society, ignoring any and all other aspects to order and law in a civil society, and the fact that, believe it or not, economic factors actually do come into play when a lot of money is involved in producing something.
Do you think ESPN, CNNSI, CBS and other sports news aggregators get the content for their live play-by-play event services on web sites and mobile devices for free? Hell no. The "information wants to be free" and "everything is okay when it's done using technology, but only when it's the people and not corporations or government" arguments can be saved for elsewhere.
What if I want to set up a network of personnel across the country who live-blog every NCAA sporting event, and broadcast it on a web site. Maybe one with ads. And then I pay people to live blog for me. At every event. And maybe all of those people can have computers with cameras, and stream video as well. Well, why not? I should be able to do that, right? No? Where do you draw the line?
If everyone wants to have bloggers be considered legitimate "journalists" no matter who they are, they're going to have to play by the same rules everyone else does, too. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Sure, sure, he's just "reporting on the event" with "newer technology" than the old antiquated dinosaurs, right? Wrong. He's providing some semblance of live coverage of the event, and that's something other content providers have to license and pay for.
If you're live-broadcasting an event, the NCAA is likely to get its feathers ruffled, and not allow you to do it. This is not the government, and if you think it's "censorship" or inhibiting free speech or that bloggers are just "journalists", except in more real time, then why don't you get all up in arms about not being able to broadcast the video or audio from the events live or in near realtime, either?
This isn't about "blogging". It's about live/near-live coverage of an event by a person with press credentials - that is another critical point - without having paid to do so, like everyone else who provides such coverage has.
Sigh (Score:5, Funny)
And here I was hoping that the Great Blogger Purge had begun.
A man can dream, though. A man can dream...
Re:"In Soviet America"? Please. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bravo. My hat is off to you.
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Re:"In Soviet America"? Please. (Score:5, Funny)
Is that really debatable?
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Re:"In Soviet America"? Please. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think our business models are in for a tough shakeout. Sidenote: the lawyers will make money either way...
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How is this different then rock concerts, first-run movies, etc.?
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No, it's not the NCAA. It's the University of Louisville [louisville.edu]:
The University of Louisville is a state supported research university located in Kentucky's largest metropolitan area. [louisville.edu]
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The University of Louisville is a state supported research university located in Kentucky's largest metropolitan area. [louisville.edu]
I like the angle you took, but it has way too many thickets in it:
So what research is the State paying for at this particular sports game, exactly?
There is a difference between State "supported" and state "owned". I get a huge tax deduction each year for the interest on my house mortgage, on energy-saving measures I perform on the home, my home office space, etc etc. In short, the State supports my housing in a small indirect way - same way the State (ditto) supports college sports programs in indire
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1. Federal or state does not matter when it comes to First Amendment issues. The First Amendment applies to the states via the Substantive Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. This is a quasi-governmental agency (NCAA) and a state university, using state property, and using state resources to enforce their policies (police, courts). The Constitutional dimension to this case is not as black-and-white as you seem to believe; however, I tend to agree with the bulk of your analysis. T
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Federal or state does not matter when it comes to First Amendment issues. The First Amendment applies to the states via the Substantive Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The first amendment applies manifestly to the federal government, even if it can be extended to states. But this isn't really a first amendment issue; under this person's press credentials and terms, he is allowed to relate the events of the game, just not live, from the event, because live or near-
Re:"In Soviet America"? Please. (Score:4, Insightful)
The first amendment applies manifestly to the federal government, even if it can be extended to states.
The Constitutional issue of whether the 1st Amendment applies to the states, and state universities in particular, is absolutely black-and-white under current jurisprudence. It does.
But this isn't really a first amendment issue; under this person's press credentials and terms, he is allowed to relate the events of the game, just not live, from the event, because live or near-live coverage is covered by other licensing and costs. Other journalistic entities do essentially live textual coverage of games, and they have a license to do so.
If he is a valid member of the press, whose primary purpose is reporting on (rather than retransmitting) the event, then it becomes a First Amendment issue. You cannot license the terms by which the press utilizes their First Amendment prerogative. The issue becomes whether, by "live blogging" the event, he was engaged in an impermissible rebroadcast rather than, for lack of a better word, "journalism." As with most legal issues, it is open to interpretation, which was my overriding point: the blogger may well have a case.
The NCAA isn't even a quasi-governmental agency. It's a private association.
While the Supreme Court held that the NCAA was not a state actor in NCAA v. Tarkanian, 488 U.S. 179 (1988), that holding is limited to the facts of that case, which are manifestly different than here. I submit that it is an open question. You may indeed be right, but I tend to fall on the other side of the argument.
The NCAA's right to control and license the live/near-live and recorded contents of its events has been tested and confirmed in the courts.
I have no doubt that it has, although I would be interested in the line of cases. This is not a retransmission, however, which carries particular legal significance. I submit it is an open question whether or not his "journalistic transformation" of the events creates a First Amendment issue. Would your analysis be different if he had purchased a ticket and sat down to watch the game with the public, laptop in hand?
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Simply accepting a license to attend a sporting event does not strip you of all rights. As an example, there is a line of 4th Amendment cases regarding the propriety of, and limits to, searching sporting event attendees.
he didn't just have a license to attend the event (which i would call a "ticket"), he had a license to perform a certain type of press coverage (which is called press credentials). the NCAA has obviously granted live coverage to certain entities (ESPN probably being one of them). they probably don't want to lose whatever deal they might have with those entities, and therefore restrict what standard press credentials allow you to do.
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The point is: it's stupid to try to say these people are allowed to communicate in a certain way (because they paid us), and these people are not.
Reminds me of my visit to the Kremlin — you had to buy a special sticker for your shirt if you wanted to be allowed to take photos. Soviet America indee
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And if you were caught, you'd be warned and then ejected. Why? Because your buddy didn't pay for a ticket to the game.
How the hell is that stupid? That's how licen
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Caught? How?
A ticket gets you into the game. My buddy is not at the game. He has not received the benefit of buying a ticket and has not bought one. Seems fair to me.
You still haven't explained how it's not stupid.
Wha
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The bottom line is, no matter how extensive it is or isn't, "live blogging" or any other kind of live coverage is NOT ALLOWED by persons with press passes, and they were told this. That is the end of the discussion.
I find it amusing that people can put forth all kinds of ridiculous slippery slope arguments on other technology issues, but c
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"Blogging, all the benefits of being a journalist with none of the responsibilities!"
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Just because it's on the Internet doesn't exempt the act from its brethren on older tech, y'know?
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Yes.
If I understand correctly, your main issue is with people who are confusing this with government-sponsored censorship, and I agree with you on tha
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Money which is used to pay for promotion/running of NCAA events and is passed back to the partner schools to help them fund their activities (including things like athletic scholarships, funnily enough). That's a bad example to use to make your case.
But...but... (Score:2)
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In the first case, the place had a sign up that said "free wireless" and a network that was broadcasting its SSID. The store owner didn't even think it was illegal; a nosy cop decided
And why exactly not? (Score:2)
And why should this be a problem? Yes, they haven't paid for the right to do so. But why ought that to be a requirement fo
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No. There was not a moratorium on blogging about the game AFTER it was over. There was a moratorium on blogging on the game WHILE you were THERE. Just like a newspaper reporter would publish his article after the game was over, an evening sports newscaster would go over the gam
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"UNC gslam!!!!!"
"UNC Pedro gslam w 2 O in 7th - crowd goes wild"
Or, two emails:
"OMG - Pedro just hit a grandslam in the bottom of the 7th - we're up by 3!!! Everyone's dancing, and the other team is in shambles - they're having a conference on the mound!!!"
"UNC's Pedro hits grandslam in the bottom of the 7th with 2 outs - count was 2-1, and he hit a high fastball
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The story isn't "this guy got caught violating a policy that he knew about," the story is "Look what a ridiculous policy the NCAA has."
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You're correct. They can't stop you. But they don't have to let you sit in the stadium while you do it.
See what I did there?
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Yes, the story actually is about some guy who got caught violating a policy he knew about that was a condition of him getting special access into the game. It's actually a pretty modern policy, attempting to incorporate modern technology into its licensing plans. If the NCAA allows everyone to do live broadcasting of game data for free, then why would anyone pay for it? If
Re:"In Soviet America"? Please. (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but according to free market economics, I have the ability and right to boycott private organizations who participate in such behavior.
Getting this information out and the opening and decrying it helps others to do the same and to know the truth about this behavior.
Even though it is legal, it doesn't make it right in my views and I can voice my opinion by not supporting their private organization.
Why? (Score:2)
Why?
Seriously. Why?
These are relevant points of discussion. I do not place the rights of the corporation above the rights of the individual. In fact, I hold that the rights of the corporation are inferior to the rights of the individual. I ask honestly, does the corporation even have the right to restrict the report
Re:-5 Strawman (Score:4, Insightful)
NCAA policy expressly prohibits live-blogging/coverage of the game by press, he was informed of it in advance, he had press credentials; he violated the policy anyway, got caught, and got removed.
End of story.
And no, there is no first amendment question here at all, government or no. And if there is, it's the same for any other live coverage of an event by any mechanism. I know the whole "Congress shall pass no law" thing is pesky, but yet there it is. I guess that's why your argument is always best served by trying to link government and corporate interests, making corporate "censorship" a de facto first amendment issue.
This isn't some journalist innocently trying to report the game with new technology that bucks a business model, or a guy who might want to tell his buddies about the game via computer. It's someone who wants to be considered a journalist, with journalist credentials, violating the policy set forth by the issuer of said credentials.
Not much more to say about it.
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That was also in my first post:
The Courier-Journal said that the University of Louisville sent out a memo from NCAA manager of broadcasting Jeramy Michiaels, prior to Friday's game. The memo said, in essence, that no blogging was allowed during the game.
Check.
But Bennett had not been approached after live-blogging previous games in the playoffs.
[...] The guy just got caught violating a pol
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The question of ANY kind of live coverage of an NCAA event requiring licensing to cover said event, by any mechanism, including "blogging", has already been asked and answered numerous times in the courts. There already are numerous web-based, mobile, paging, datacast, and other textual services that do live or near-live coverage of such events, and they pay for and license the content and right to
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So your argument comes down to "I think they're poopieheads"? Good luck with that.
Not 1st Amendment (Score:2)
He can say what he likes about the game on his own property, on his own dime. The 1st Amendment does not address the issue of entering property belonging to others, such as the place where the game was played. The property owners may set conditions on entry. They did. He knew of those conditions. He violated those conditions. So he was ejected. The only legal issues are those regarding his permission to enter
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Re:-5 Strawman (Score:5, Interesting)
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See, I've avoided that argument myself because honestly I'm not sure. On the one hand I'd say no, but on the other the network broadcasting the game has paid for the right to broadcast it, so by reporting on it live you are infringing on their license... I don't think the NCAA would care about it much unless the website started a
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And what exactly is it that *gives* them that insane level of control over s
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The government cannot
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You went from an incomplete but possibly correct argument to something that is absolutely positively false.
The very existence of a corporation is due solely to the government *bestowing* that right. Avoidance of consequences for your actions through legal mumbo jumbo is not a natural right and can not exist without it being granted.
In th
ObParis (Score:5, Funny)
First Amendment my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a First Amendment issue in any way, shape, or form. This is an organization not letting an individual participate because he will not abide by their rules. You can kick people out of private events basically at whim, as long as it's not on the grounds of race, religion, sex, etc. This guy was given a press pass (ie he didn't even pay to get in!), and he got kicked out for doing something they didn't like.
That said, it's tough to say whether this was a bad move or not. In one way, this blogger is competing with the radio/tv broadcasts. On the other hand, it's some no-name newspaper that probably takes very little attention away, and kicking him out is only going to generate bad press.
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In essence, it is not a problem to write down the notes on paper, go home, and post them to a blog. Allowing you to post live to a blog may violate the NCAA's tv contracts, though.
It is a shame, but this should serve to show how commercialized even college sports have become. It is one reason I avoid sports events entirely.
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The Courier-Journal is hardly a "no-name newspaper." In fact, it's #41 of the top 100 [burrellesluce.com] daily newspapers in the country. With a circulation of 218,796 daily and 266,594 on Sundays, it beats out others such as The Boston Herald and the Salt Lake Tribune.
That being said, he did violate the policy, and that's why he was asked to leave. As a reporter, it was h
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private events (Score:2)
I think in a *private* event, you can legally discriminate. May not win any friends, and the press may eat you alive, but i do think its your right to restrict your own private activities. ( ie, boyscouts... )
NCAA likes money. (Score:2)
Fair enough - tax refunds? (Score:4, Interesting)
Given that a large percentage of NCAA schools are publicly funded, and the NCAA harps ad nauseam about their role in developing successful students, it would seem to follow that it's mostly a taxpayer-funded educational institution. I can understand them saying "you can't redistribute our coverage without our consent", but I see no way they can justify saying "you can't distribute your own take on the events you're watching that you funded out of your own wallet".
Want to retain all rights to an event's coverage? Well, good luck with that, but don't spend my tax dollars enforcing it.
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Re:Fair enough - tax refunds? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That is, licensing the trademarks of the schools comprising it. As a not-for-profit entity (educational institution status), it funnels most of that money back to its members, which are largely taxpayer-funded schools.
Basically, they want all the perks of being a government institution without any of the obligations.
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So your comment has just morphed this "reporter" from a shining champion of free speech to Snidely Whiplash in a black hat snickering as he steals the mortgage money away from the schoolhouse. Awesome. How do we work tying the attractive school marm to the railroad tracks into this?
The NCAA controls broadcast rights for their games. This has been tested in court. End of story. He can report on the g
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The NCAA controls broadcast rights for their games. This has been tested in court.
But not in the way you think.
We hold that Motorola and STATS have not unlawfully misappropriated NBA's property by transmitting "real-time" NBA game scores and statistics taken from television and radio broadcasts of games in progress.
The National Basketball Association v. Motorola, Inc. [bitlaw.com]
The only difference here is that Moto was using 2nd-hand information and the blogger was using 1st-hand. You might try to argue that 1st-hand vs 2nd-hand makes a whole world of difference, but the end result is exactly the same in either case.
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Also, if blogging wants to be taken seriously as journalism, then it especially should fall in the realm of broadcasting.
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Regardless, the NCAA owns the copyright to the "performance" of the game, and that has been tested in court. You can't distribute your take on the events live without NCAA consent. In addition, when you attend a game, and particularly when you are there on press credentials, you are a licensee and under restrictions of a contract that can be revoked at any time.
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So even though the NCA
The Why? (Score:2)
it's hard to see how they can expect news organizations to keep from reporting the news as it happens.
I wouldn't be surprised if NCAA wants to introduce its own blog in the future.
next thing you know.... (Score:2)
seriously.. if he or anyone else wanted to keep live bloggin, and risk their journalistic cred, how hard would it be to get people to sms/mms/phone in updates of the game?
these enterprises have top rethink how they make revenue in this new age....
the only reason this journalist was caught is because it became a big thing &trade.
and so the powers that be get upitty about lost revenue and arrest him...loosing even more revenue!
surely t
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They would have to be making revenue from his activities to lose revenue by disallowing them.
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it all how you look at a situation
they could have handled it better
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There is a EULA. You are a licensee. Your continued presence at the event is conditional on the event not throwing you out for whatever reason they want or at least put in the "contract", ie. the back of the ticket nobody reads.
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In other news: (Score:5, Funny)
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i think the NCAA is being conterproductive (Score:2, Interesting)
Related issue with WSOP (Score:2)
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No, seriously; if Pokernews can't see the advantage in being first-to-the-punch, or have overpayed for the 'right' to spit out these numbers first, then they can complain to no one, really.
Then again, I'm not a jury, judge, lawyer, or any of that. I just find the whole thing kinda silly (sorta like when Jeep sued Hummer because the Hummers had seven slits in their vehicle's grille... just like the Jeeps do. Never mind that both grille types were built (IIRC) from some minor
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This area of law can get really complicated... Is it legal for FatWallet to republish BestBuy's prices online? Is it legal to republish facts taken from the Guiness Book of World records? The scores from a football game? The statistics of a baseball player? Its just data, just facts.. but so is a number (like the AACS one)
The question is, where are the limits of fair-use, if these things can really
New doesn't exclude (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever (Score:2)
Ejection no small ordeal (Score:2)
Comic Book Guy (Score:2)
Dept of Overwrought Redundancies Dept (Score:2)
The Real Scoop (Score:5, Insightful)
But here's the thing with this story.
Whether or not someone can blog an event depends on some things. If it's an NCAA event (as this game was), it's the NCAA's call. As far as I know, the NCAA prohibits blogging at all of its championship events, including the College World Series and the Superregionals. It sucks, because even I as an institutional representative can't blog about my team, but as several other posters have said, there are a lot of rights and a lot of cash floating out there, between TV and radio, as well as livestats on the web and the ad revenues it generates. Monetarily, the NCAA is doing itself a favor, as well as the institutions, by restricting this.
Louisville WAS NOT restricting the blogging - the NCAA was. The blogger may have gotten away with it at the basketball, probably because that event is so huge and unwieldy from a media standpoint they couldn't track him down/know he was doing it, and the Orange Bowl isn't an NCAA event.
Most institutions don't care. I don't care. Hell, I WANT people blogging my school because it means we're getting that much more exposure. 17 year-olds aren't reading about us in the newspaper - they're reading blogs, and they're going to hear about us that way. I blog my own events during the regular season, but unfortunately, once its NCAA time, it goes out the window.
And don't do the whole "it's a state-funded school" thing - 90% of these schools don't see a dime of state money for athletics. Their athletic depts. are set up as corporations that generate their own revenue and are mostly driven by student tuition activities fees, football, men's basketball and corporate and private donors.
So, in conclusion, the NCAA is perfectly within their rights to restrict this, even though it's Evil and all that.
Also, to the earlier poster who said that ESPN, CBS, etc. pay to get their live statistic game feeds - not true. Most all of the scores and stats you see on ESPN and CBS come directly from the institutions themselves. For example, if I'm the statistician for a football game, we send a live stat XML feed to our web provider, and it also gets FTP'd straight to ESPN. For schools that use the CSTV service, it goes to CBS Sportsline (which owns CSTV). For games not feeding stats like that, there are a few companies that will actually call the press row line (or, if they feel like being a pain in my ass, my cell phone) and ask for the score, high scorers, etc. ESPN owns the largest of these, SportsTicker.
How Asinine (Score:2)
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It's NOT public property... (Score:2, Informative)
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But seriously, could the authors of stories (or the Slashdot editorial staff) please remember that the readership aren't all based in the good ol'US of A and hence may not recognise the acronyms used, even if they are totally familiar to you. Surely adding the expansion in brackets after the first use of the term wouldn't hurt and it would help a large number of the readership (maybe even a slight majority) get the most out of the information being given. After all, i