Premier League wants to PURGE ALL FOOTIE GIFs from social media The English Premier League is working to design new software which will stop piratical football fans uploading footage of goals to Vine or social media. It has apologised for being a "killjoy" after warning fans that spaffing images of goals all over the internet is a breach of copyright. Now it is developing software to …
IANAL but is it actually a breach of copyright? There are narrow exemptions in UK law for fair dealing particularly for news reporting. If they were posting the entire match then that would clearly be a breach, but given they are only posting 6 second chunks that is about 0.1% of the copyrighted product.
@Mr Hill. goto 9gag :) plenty of gifs there !!
@ Mole,
not sure why your replying to Mr Hill's comment as you talked about something completely unrelated, if were cynical about the whole thing my presumption would be you want ed to have your comment read at the top of the page instead of being 4 comments down ....
and in reply to your comment, all they would need to do is ban filming of the event therefore resolving any legal issues.
not sure why your replying to Mr Hill's comment as you talked about something completely unrelated , if were cynical about the whole thing my presumption would be you want ed to have your comment read at the top of the page instead of being 4 comments down ....
Pot, meet Kettle.
@Lionel
Like Luis Suarez, your excuses just don't ring true ...
> my reply actually had something to do with the previous post
It looks to me like you prefaced your off-topic reply with a throw away comment in an attempt to cover yourself in case of criticism. I would suggest that pointing out an internet site which contains funny GIFs hardly contributes to the discussion.
> I wasn't replying just to try and grab the second spot on the page
Funny, I get exactly the opposite impression.
If you felt strongly about perceived attention seeking in others, then the proper thing to do would be to start a newly titled comment. If your motive was draw attention to yourself by criticising a fellow Commentard, then you've succeeded. Unfortunately, calling another's motivation into question attracts the wrong kind of attention.
You've been here long enough to know better. The Register's message boards are thankfully free of the pettiness you exhibited and I, for one, would like them to remain that way.
Fink, you are a dick.
Lionel Baden was responding to the attention seeking Mole's completely spurious response to a question about GIF's.
When you respond to the content of somebodies comment you hit the reply button and respond. You do not start a completely new thread.
When your comment has absolutely nothing to do with a comment you start a new thread, you do not hit reply so that you comment appears near the top of the page.
> Fink, you are a dick.
> Lionel Baden was responding to the attention seeking Mole's completely spurious response to a question about GIF's.
If doubting that El Reg benefits by self-appointed forum police making pronouncements on the motives behind other's posts makes me a dick, then so be it.
This post has been deleted by its author
@Fink-Nottle.
>It looks to me like you prefaced your off-topic reply with a throw away comment in an attempt to cover yourself in case of criticism. I would suggest that pointing out an internet site which contains funny GIFs hardly contributes to the discussion.
If you check the reply (click on the arrow to the left of my comment) you will see i was actually replying to you. And a website that contains thousands of gif images in response to "who uses gifs anyway" is actually pretty damn spot on the mark !
How is it breach of copyright in any way? I imagine that there is a condition in the small print on the back of the ticket that denies all photography, but that is mere breach of contract.
I don't suppose that a football stadium counts as a "public place" but if it did then the photographer would be in the clear.
The interview on Radio 4 this morning was talking about posting video clips obtained from television coverage onto YouTube or other social media. With no fair-use provision in UK copyright law, any video obtained from transmitted material that is redistributed is a breach of copyright, unless allowed by a specific waiver of copyright.
What is not copyright breach is using a phone in the ground to record part of the match, and then posting that. That may breach the terms and conditions of the ticket, but would not be a copyright offence (unless the owners of the advertising objected to that appearing - but they'd be stupid to complain about wider distribution of their adverts!)
"With no fair-use provision in UK copyright law"
Wow, is that right? If so, that completely sucks. To be fair, a highlights reel of a single match is anyway difficult to shoehorn in as fair use, but some goals / actions + added comment on player positioning etc surely could count as educational use?
And what about Premier League footage that is broadcast, captured and uploaded in a country where fair use exemptions DO exist? Of course in that case, still accessible in UK. Can of worms!
There is the right to (very restricted) quotation for journalistic or scholastic or critical purposes, but no general 'fair use', which is just as well, as 'fair use' is seen as 'I am pure of heart, so I will help myself.'
When I was in publishing, I used to have to count the lines of poetry in a poem being quoted by a contributor to meet the boundary of 'quotation used for...' rules.
"What is not copyright breach is using a phone in the ground to record part of the match, and then posting that. That may breach the terms and conditions of the ticket, but would not be a copyright offence (unless the owners of the advertising objected to that appearing - but they'd be stupid to complain about wider distribution of their adverts!)"
I may be wrong, but from what I can gather, it CAN be a copyright breach because of two things.
1. Most stadia I know about are at least partially privately owned. Thus photography and videography rights can be restricted on account of that ownership. Just as one can't normally take a picture of the interior of a domicile without permission.
2. A video recording or photograph is recognized as a work of art and thus is subject to copyright. Thus the owner of a location can sell the photography rights to events held in their location. Museums employ this restriction also IIRC.
Yes, a football stadium would count as a public place in this sense, exactly the same as any other venue where an even is staged, because tickets are available to the general public.
But that's a red herring in any case. The private place/public place issue is a privacy matter, not a copyright matter. Copyright *always* belongs to the person who creates the image (or sequence of images) and not the performer.
This story would seem to be about people sharing images or clips created by the TV companyand therefore owned by them, which have been broadcast over the internet, not images or clips surreptitiously caught by spectators on their own devices. Either that, or Murdoch's legal team are laughably clueless and sadly I don't believe that to be the case, funny as it would be.
This post has been deleted by its author
Correct, because in Freudian terms it is the actual lawyers that tend to have the anal personalities, rather than the people who tell you they aren't.
However, back on topic, none of them would appear to be half so anal as the Football Association. It is a pity that the original amateurs who invented the game couldn't have copyleft it so that nobody could profit from it.
Who is posting GIF's in this day and age?
All of the soccer GIFs I've seen are of international level players falling over like they're made of porcelain and throwing tantrums. It's really quite hilarious to see how undignified an overpaid adult human can be.
And that's understandably embarrassing for the sport. They could stamp it out... or I guess they could do this.
I'm pretty sure that automated routines can pick out that a video is of a football game with decent success especially if it's the 'standard' pitch orientation in most feeds. But how do they know it's a Premier League match, not someone filming their local pub league? If it's the official live feed there's team names in the top corner but if it's someone filmig the TV with their phone, or getting the official feed and distorting the top corner before uploading, how to tell?
> we have to protect our intellectual property.
It's not often your hear "intellectual" being used in an article about football.
But, heigh-ho - I suppose if they can find a way to block stuff that *they* have a right to - but not, say, of little Johnny knocking one into the back of the net at the local park - then good luck to 'em
It's odd though. You'd have hoped there would be more to a football match: 90 minutes and £40 than just a few seconds of a ball moving from a boot (or head, or <ahem> hand) to a net. Makes you wonder whether the entire 39 week soccer season couldn't just be telescoped down into a 5 minute mass-kicking sometime in May. You'd get all the goals and it would save a whole lot of tedious traveling, speculation, punditry and disappointment.
"But, heigh-ho - I suppose if they can find a way to block stuff that *they* have a right to - but not, say, of little Johnny knocking one into the back of the net at the local park - then good luck to 'em"
Or do like everybody else in the media.. And send takedown notices to all qualifying images.. Including little Johnny kicking a ball round the back garden.
Little bit of work to rule might be spamming Youtube and other similar places with blindingly obvious not what ever it is league videos, and seeing how long before Youtube gets sent a nastygram.
Calling the competing press to make a storm in a teacup about it is of course optional.
If a money takes a picture in an open location, the picture is public domain because animals cannot claim copyright (since they're not considered a being capable of recognizing the concept).
Meanwhile, a football match takes place in an at-least-semi-private location. That means it can restrict photography on the grounds. Museums do it, too.
So if a monkey takes a picture of a goal, then the copyright belongs to the stadium because of the premises provision.
This post has been deleted by its author
IIRC, this did come up some years ago (in relation of satellite rebroadcasts or similar) and it basically came down to "It's the on-screen graphics which are copyrighted" - leaving them open to "if you can rebroadcast it without the graphics or pitchside sponsor logos, then you /may/ be clear"
Isn't that what ultimately did for the non-UK based satellite services offering Premier League games cheaply to pubs? The broadcasting and receiving of them was OK, but as soon as the Premier League logo appears, it became breach of copyright and therefore illegal to show. I would of thought the same thing applies here, incl. Sky logos and any other advertising, team logo's and presumably any breach of image rights the players may have.
Sorry state of affairs though and just one more reason to hate Murdoch and the Premier league. best league in the World my arse.
"So the guys kicking the ball are over paid actors and the entire event is scripted?"
They could argue that it's sort of improvisational theatre where the 'actors' have some general guidelines but act autonomously / spontaneously during the 'performance'. So, yes I would say that their official feed is legally copyrightable without having to refer to on-screen graphics.
Anything a fan shoots on their own camera though, is copyright to whoever films it, it highly pisses me off when for example FIFA were taking down World Cp videos shot by fans. There's also the news/public interest angle. If an event is newsworthy I don't see why a member of the public filming it should be restricted by copyright law.
The Premier League or rights holder can very simply sign up to Vine for clips and tumblr for gifs and simply post the goals a split-second before the rest of the world. If world+dog can do it, there's no reason Sky and co can't.
They'll get all the followers and in doing so undermine the 'black market' (grey as it is)
I think it is more like "Do not make copyright law the subject of mainstream pub talk, or else the whole show is over.".
Let's be honest here, most *normal* folks tolerate copyright law and most probably reckon it serves a useful purpose in allowing artists to make a crust. However, if it stops them enjoying their footy with their mates then IT SUCKS AND MUST GO IMMEDIATELY REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES.
This may be where the Premier League's gravy train hits the buffers, a bit like the music industry.
I agree if it starts being a hassle, especially in pubs, people will start to make a big deal over it.
The rights owners already lost quite a bit of the high-ground when they starting sending notices to grannies, but I think most people where still of the "it doesn't affect me" mindset. Corrupt politicians depend on voters not caring (for the most part). Once most of them do, they either do what the voters say, or get tossed out (big business be damned)
If the fans take a video of something that happens in front of them and uploads it, they are violating copyright? I know there are big money contracts signed for broadcasting matches but this does sound more like breach of contract that copright violation (am assuming there is something in the ticket small print).
At least now we know the reasaon why Man U banned tablets.
At least now we know the reasaon why Man U banned tablets.
Cause Phones are easier to control then a 7" or 10" Fondleslab? Someone should probably tell them that those have some decent Cameras too... BTW: Whats the story on Google Glass? Will the FA employ Drones to spot all those malcontented Glassholes?
"Will the FA employ Drones to spot all those malcontented Glassholes?"
Forget them. They already make "live shades" that woud've made Spider Jerusalem jealous. 4 GB+, can do video (many at 720p30), MicroSD, Bluetooth-capable, AND they look completely like ordinary glasses. Add a pair of prescription lenses and you have a perfect disguise that no one can force you to take off (since the prescription renders the glasses medically necessary).
And I give you two quick examples.
1) News reporting
Using material for the purpose of reporting current events is permitted provided that:
The work is not a photograph.
The source of the material is acknowledged.
The amount of the material quoted is no more than is necessary for the purpose.
2) Criticism or review
Quoting parts of a work for the purpose of criticism or review is permitted provided that:
The work has been made available to the public.
The source of the material is acknowledged.
The material quoted must be accompanied by some actual discussion or assessment (to warrant the criticism or review classification).
The amount of the material quoted is no more than is necessary for the purpose of the review.
So if you set up your twit/vine/facebook/youtube account as either:
Red top style news outlet.
Giving appropriate acknowledgements and only to show 'appropriate' amount.
Football Pundit.
Review or criticise the goal and again quote your sources.
But then.. Since when has copyright been for the 'little guy'?
The work has been made available to the public.
This is the sticking point - the official match footage is not by default made available to the public - it is paid for content.
The earlier point about using your own camera at a football match, that is not copyright violation. However it is often against the T's & C's that you implicitly agreed to with your purchase and use of the ticket.
"The work has been made available to the public.
This is the sticking point - the official match footage is not by default made available to the public - it is paid for content."
the game has been made available to the public, not everyone has to buy a ticket and go to the event. I haven't purchased every book/film in the world, but they are still reviewed and excerpts are shown/read for me to see/read/hear.
It would certainly be a valid argument if you were defending an allegation that you were in breach of copyright, and no doubt Mr. Murdoch's lawyers would argue the opposite. The winner however is frequently the person who hired the most expensive lawyers rather than the person whose argument is correct.
A great way to alienate the fans, not that Murdoch ever gave a rat's arse about alienating anybody.
A ball hitting the back of the net could arguably be the player's intellectual property as they had to think about how to achieve the goal but Intellectual and The Sun in the same sentence? Oxymoronic!
As it has already been proven in court that pictures of premier league football are NOT copyrightable.
http://www.out-law.com/articles/2012/march1/premier-league-considering-selling-broadcast-rights-on-pan-eu-basis-following-ecj-ruling/
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-25968200
more, google it.
Only the Logos are copyrightable. A camera phone recording will not show logos, so the pictures are not copyright.
Premier League is very, very well aware of this. But they'd rather put out these lies and hope people believe them.
From your Out-Law link: "Whilst live sporting events themselves are not protected by copyright, broadcasts of them and film, sound recordings, graphics, music and other features included within a broadcast are."
That seems to say that pictures and recordings of the game are copyrightable - "broadcasts of them and film, sound recordings ... are." A phone recording does have a copyright, but it belongs to the person who was using the phone at the time. They may, however, be in breach of a contract they entered into when buying their ticket, not to take recordings...
In the case above, I read that as saying that the Premier League had licensed their stream to a foreign provider, who sold the decoder card back to the UK. Preventing this by contract would be a breach of EU free trade laws, so those companies abroad have the right to show the copyrighted film of the game anywhere in the EU. Because separate copyrights exist in the logos and anthem, the Premier League *can* stop those being shown. Seems a pretty unclear case all round, though.
However, nothing I've seen says which the League will be looking for: footage captured from TV signals or that from illicit recordings made at the match.
IANAL, etc...
No. You are talking bollocks. The game is not copyrightable, but recordings and broadcasts of them are. It says as much in the article you linked to.
"Whilst live sporting events themselves are not protected by copyright, broadcasts of them and film, sound recordings, graphics, music and other features included within a broadcast are."
This means that the football club cannot copyright their game, a fan in the crowd can record it legally, but the television company filming it can copyright their broadcast. You cannot take their recording of the game, and redistribute it, whether you take the logos off it or not.
"This means that the football club cannot copyright their game, a fan in the crowd can record it legally, but the television company filming it can copyright their broadcast. You cannot take their recording of the game, and redistribute it, whether you take the logos off it or not."
But they CAN restrict the photography of the game. First off, the venue is usually at least partially-privately-owned, so a premises provision can apply (filming the interior of one's premises without permission is generally not allowed, IIRC). If you see a sign near a business's front door that reads "No cameras," this is the justification. Second, the game is restricted access (you PAID for the ticket), meaning there are terms and conditions to the permission to spectate encapsulated in the ticket.
"What happens if the footage was taken by a monkey?"
I don't know about a monkey, but if it was an ape, I'm absolutely positive the resulting legal wrangling would lead to the ape leading his people in a revolution. Meanwhile, a space craft of some kind will be launched, and something would happen to it [and its human crew] and they'd return to Earth some time in the distant future, only to discover that man had fallen, and apes now ruled the planet.
All because of an argument over copyright.
We're doomed!
Doomed!
There is a faint possibility that some people at the Met may yet come to regret their backhanders from the Murdoch Press. [I know, it was a few bad apples, Murdoch is as pure as the driven Blair and has his kids baptised in the River Jordan while wearing white robes...] We would not want something similar to happen to the City of London police or people might start asking why these organisations are in charge of national policing, when some nasty people might think they shouldn't even be issuing parking tickets.
Oh, I note South Yorkshire Police told journalists they were raiding the house of a celebrity well in advance. Perhaps it's catching.
"...something something, but they have to realise it's illegal.... blah blah... remember it's illegal...."
Yeah, and guess what- that was your choice. You ultimately own the rights, and could easily have decided to permit limited use of the clips in this way. If you'd wanted to, that is.
Most of the media is actually grasping that say, someone doing a youtube song of them singing Frozen or fan art of The Avengers doesn't matter at all. You might want to shut down the people broadcasting the whole film, but that stuff doesn't hurt you and in fact probably helps you because it generates some interest.
No-one buys a Sky sub just to see the goals. You can see them on MOTD a few hours later. It's to see the whole match live, to be part of the drama of events unfolding.
And seriously, what's the odds of this actually working. You block them on vine? So, what's to stop someone sticking the video on a video sharing site in China? Oh, you're just going to prosecute a fan. Really, good luck with the backlash to that.
I love it when the likes of the premier league try to put increasingly tight controls on 'their property'. The harder they try, the more people will try to circumvent the controls, and in ever more imaginative ways. How about someone flies a drone camera into Anfield to film a game? Do the Premier League licence the Israeli 'Iron Dome' to protect their 'property'. They make more than enough money out of football and need to chill the fuck out.
Don't we have a sodding monkey to prove this? For example, I took an architectural photo at a local mall, and was politely told to stop doing this. The owners of the mall are absolutely in the rights to ask me to stop. However, they have no claim to ownership over the photo I've already taken. I believe the same would be true of a photo (or video) of a goal taken at a football game. They can tell you to stop; they can eject you, but they can't claim ownership on what you've created.
Looks like a land grab to me.
Nothing like a nice bit of private ownership of a public space, and this is exactly what many indoor malls happen to be. The owners are quite within their rights to make up a no photography rule*.
* Which they seem to have relaxed, recently, doubtless thanks to less than stellar publicity.
I had this happen when I saw some really interesting roof trusses in a new building and wanted to take a picture (child who is a structural engineer, I'm not quite that sad.) The security guard told me to stop. I moved one step sideways, pointed out that I was now on public property, i.e. the pavement, and took my photos unmolested.
It's not their fault, it's their management. Perhaps I was a terrorist looking for the best place to put the Semtex. But as I had just been wandering inside the building taking pictures for my report on something IT-related, it was a bit too late.
And so we have a culture where big business can take whatever they want from you, whether it's a photo of you out and about or a photo you put onto your Fartbook, Fluckr or even your own website, they can take it and use it to advertise their wares because it's for the good of the community of internetizens to be able to take what's yours and make it theirs. Good for them.
But if you've paid upward of £40 to see a match and want to record what your eyes are seeing, (or, as the big businesses see it, stealing from them), then that is illegal. You are naughty, very naughty, and you should be punished for even thinking that you can take something that belongs to someone else and use it for your own entertainment. What were you thinking!?
You're not rich enough to steal!
How dare you!?
Queen are currently on tour with Adam Lambert as their singer.
Fans are recording and posting videos, ranging from chart clips, to full song, to the entire concert.
Others then started collecting these videos and editing them into good quality multi-camera videos of entire concerts and posting them freely on YouTube etc.
Queen's response? Brian May (lead guitarist and part time vocalist) posts links to them via his Twitter account, his Facebook account and his own website!
At one point the record company stepped in and asked YouTube to remove them. May found out, and his response was to tell the record company to stop it.
THERE lies the difference between genuine talent performing for the fans, and football which holds the fans in contempt and views them merely as a cash cow.
Do these morons not get it? The grassroots of interest in football (and now F1 motorsport ) is being destroyed by the advent of expensive pay to watch TV. Yes, a handful of people are making a mint but ask any kids' football coach what's happening and they'll tell you that with Freeview's loss of English league football has gone the interest of a large percentage of kids who can no longer watch top level English football on television. It's ironic that the football industry is now spending yet more money on technology to ensure that even less people have access to the game. Wake up! You're killing the golden goose.
Could this restriction could not lead to other restrictions? 3D diagrams of ball trajectory, foot and body positioning. Sounds a bit pedantic, but I can see a day coming when the owners of the content subsequently wanted to produce a virtual reconstruction of events leading up to a goal which could be used for various purposes, some of which could be of a highly technical nature.
What if howtoscoregoals.com gets registered to take advantage of the eucational copyright exceptions?
Are "dive" videos covered by the caracature exception?
If a site with robots.txt (disallow: /footiegifs) and a honeypot gif gets a takedown notice, will we be liable under the computer misuse act?
Are they saying that if I go to a match and capture a goal on my smartphone they own the copyright?
Or are they saying if I capture something they transmit and retransmit it I break copyright?
If the first I may break terms and conditions, but good luck to them trying to pin it down to me and even more trying to get a judgement that makes them not look like the tossers they are.
If it's the second, well ok can see their point, but still good luck to them.
The winners of this are the people with the contract to provide the technology to 'try' to stop it.
"
Do not piss off fans
Or they will piss off leaving you with no money.
"
Indeed. Major League Baseball has been apparently trying to figure out why viewership has dropped off... it was already dropping like a rock 15 years ago when I was in college. Why did it drop off? They make it so quite a few games are only available with expensive sports packages. With an antenna you certainly will not get enough games to bother watching it. And no online coverage without paying like $150 for a MLB online package (not even streaming radio.) Result? A lot of younger people don't have a TV (they watch videos on the computer if at all), and even fewer spend big money on some cable or dish package; and they aren't about to pay $150 to watch. So they don't.
Next, they'll solve this problem by engaging troll lawyers who will send everybody a demand for $10 000 for illegally downloading their content, with the option of taking out a subscription for life instead.
The English speaking world - where we don't have to worry about the Mafia, because here they're legitimate businessmen and that makes it all right.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
