Are rights issues chilling online sports news reporting?
Steve Safran June 27th, 2007
There have been two national news stories this week involving sports. One is the death of WWE wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife and son in an apparent double-murder/suicide. The other is the House hearings into the NFL’s disability plans for retired football players. And although both those stories are getting airtime, Andrew Tyndall keenly observes that you’re hard-pressed to find the video versions of those stories online:
The explanation for their presence on television but their absence as video has nothing to do with journalism, and everything to do with copyright. The rights to use sports footage do not transfer from one medium to another so the footage at a correspondent’s disposal to cover a sports story varies medium by medium. The same is true for journalism about show business.
Consider these examples: since the start of May, there have been 18 news stories that aired on ABC World News that have not been posted online; fully half of those (six sports stories, three show business stories) have been on subjects where video rights are difficult to clear. On CBS the same holds true: of the 13 CBS Evening News stories that have not been posted online, four were sports and three were show business.
Amen, Andrew. We have been warning about this for years now. I would argue fair use in these cases, but it’s not hard to see why networks would back off putting the stories online, given the onerous way the NFL and others enforce their online rights. You can bet any use of sports video, even in a news story, would result in a cease-and-desist letter, followed by more back-and-forth letters and lawsuit threats. Who needs that? The risk adds up to the potential for networks losing real money, and they are understandably shy about getting into expensive fights these days.
7 Comments Add your own
1. Rocker | June 27th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Right. The irony is that the real losers over the long haul will be the sports rights holders….listen up NFL…who are going to be increasingly marginalized in the overall scheme of things. They can control…and milk….the access points for core fans, who will find them wherever they are (”preaching to the converted”). But for the casual fan, out of sight will mean out of mind….and that gradually means few new core fans, and more people caring less about what goes on in the sport.
Speaking as a media observer, and as a casual football fan who long sense lost track of what’s happening int he NFL…and frankly, couldn’t care less. College sports are more entertaining anyway.
2. Allen | June 27th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
The NCAA has some pretty strict rules as well…not to the level of the NFL though.
3. Alyssa | June 27th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Vince McMahon is known for being controlling about stuff like copyright. And for trying to squeeze every dime out of a situation. I’ve heard that the WWE owns the rights to the name “The Rock”and if Dwayne (formerly The Rock) Johnson wants to use it, he has to pay royalties to the McMahon clan.
I imagine that the NFL isn’t too dissimilar.
4. Rob | June 27th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I’m not in a market where we have a major professional sports franchise but we have no problem covering sports online with video. There are plenty of high school, college, semi-professional sports and annual large-scale sporting events in our area that fill the need for sports video coverage for our audience.
We can’t post NFL footage, so we broadcast our local afl2 franchise and Friday night high school football. We can’t post NBA but we have Washington State University and Gonzaga basketball. We can’t post NASCAR, but we have two local race tracks.
5. Allen | June 27th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Our local MLS team has practically begged us to put footage of their games on our site.
6. Leonard | June 27th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Similar issues in Australia, however a recent legal decision seems to indicate that online video should be treated the same as broadcast TV with regards fair use. This is having some implications in the lead up to the Olympics next year given the horrendous amounts of money the host broadcaster has paid for exclusivity.
7. mike jones | June 27th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Love the first comment, if only it were true.
The only reason the nfl can play this game is because of its unbelieveable popularity.
It is the most popular sport in the country. It doesn’t need local news… Local news needs it. If you read this site everyday, you know that local news needs all the help it can get.
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