Recording of football and publishing on internet - copyright voilation?

[balikavadhu]

Guys,

Is uploading a video on the internet (on youtube or any other website) and making it available for streaming publicly of any football game played in the past considered as copyright violation?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Zigner]

First: This site is for US law only.
Second: Yes

 

[justalayman]

I would lower it to:

maybe

Is uploading a video on the internet (on youtube or any other website) and making it available for streaming publicly of any football game played in the past considered as copyright violation?

it would depend where the video came from, who recorded it, the venue, and any rights claimed by the performers or their agents. If it is a NFL game, it would be a violation. If it was my kid's Rocket football game that I videotaped, most likely not (although there are a few possible exceptions)

 

[Zigner]

I would lower it to:

maybe


it would depend where the video came from, who recorded it, the venue, and any rights claimed by the performers or their agents. If it is a NFL game, it would be a violation. If it was my kid's Rocket football game that I videotaped, most likely not (although there are a few possible exceptions)

Fair enough - I assumed it was referring to an NFL game that was recorded from a broadcast.

 

[FlyingRon]

Yes, the rule is for such "performances" as football games, the copyright goes to the person who films/videos it. Now an old game you personally filmed isn't going to be an issue as stated. Anything that was filmed by anybody else, belongs to them. All the licenses to actually attend professional and nearly all collegiate sports in recent memory reserves the right to create those videos to the sports league or school. Even making your own video to upload is going to get you in trouble.

 

[Zigner]

Of course...

We've still got the "US law only" problem to deal with

ETA: For all we know, our OP is recording and streaming soccer games!

 

[quincy]

Yes, the rule is for such "performances" as football games, the copyright goes to the person who films/videos it. Now an old game you personally filmed isn't going to be an issue as stated. Anything that was filmed by anybody else, belongs to them. All the licenses to actually attend professional and nearly all collegiate sports in recent memory reserves the right to create those videos to the sports league or school. Even making your own video to upload is going to get you in trouble.

Although the "rule" might be that the copyright belongs to the person who films/videos a game (or creates a work), the copyright in recorded college and professional games generally go to the organizations that employ the filmmaker/videographer (under work for hire agreements).

And the filming/videotaping of any game is often not a problem (as long as a venue allows for recording the event). It will be what is done with the film or videotape (especially if there is audio) or photographs taken that can create a whole host of legal problems for the creator (anything from IP rights violations to recording law violations to invasion of privacy law violations).

As a note: This is one of the few areas of copyright law that is shared by almost all (if not all) countries of the world (not that the "US Law Only/What is the name of your state?" question can be or should be ignored ).