Intellectual Property and Sport

I attended a professional sporting event recently and noticed tucked away in the fine print that accompanied the tickets this prohibition: “Personal size video cameras are NOT permitted. Still cameras with lenses longer than 8 inches are NOT permitted.” That got me thinking (again) about intellectual property and sport, and wondering how far professional sports leagues and franchises will or can go to assert intellectual property rights relating to matches.

Most of us will be familiar with a statement issued during television broadcasts of sporting events that runs along the lines of: “this broadcast is the property of (the league in question) and may not be re-broadcast, distributed or copied in whole or in part except with the express written permission of (the league)…“. The prohibition mentioned above seems to take things to an extreme, in that the league and team are attempting to assert intellectual property rights over the very experience of watching the game on the field and prohibiting you from recording it, even for your own personal use. This seems almost metaphysical in its application.

We have seen attempts by professional sports leagues to prohibit the broadcast of live match results via Twitter. Those attempts have been successful. The hairs being split in these cases are pretty fine indeed, but the upshot appears to be that leagues and sports franchises are able to exert proprietary rights over almost every aspect of the experience of matches played, including those which patrons experience personally while attending a match.

All of this is probably fine with most fans, but somehow, something doesn’t feel quite right to me. Fans pay high prices already to attend matches, and it seems almost draconian to ban them from taking their own videos or photos. Of course, everyone is now a video producer on YouTube, but for those of us who are not interested in re-broadcasting a match, this just feels overbearing. One thing we can be sure of is that the situation isn’t going to change any time soon. Perhaps leagues and teams will go further and ban mobile phones at matches, just in case you call your friend to let him know the score at half-time….