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FTC complaint flags NFL, MLB, studios for overstating copyright claims
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Any fan of the NFL can almost recite the warning by memory: “This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL’s consent is prohibited.” The legitimacy of that broad claim may be determined by the Federal Trade Commission after the Computer & Communications Industry Association filed a lengthy complaint with the FTC this morning. The CCIA is a trade group with members such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, RedHat, and others that promotes “open markets, open systems, and full, fair, and open competition.” Those companies believe that the overly broad copyright claims “cast a pall” over the tech industry.
The CCIA’s complaint fingers the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBC Universal, Morgan Creek, DreamWorks, Harcourt Inc., and Penguin Group (USA) for deceptive trade practices, accusing them of systematically mispresenting the rights of consumers to use copyrighted material. “These warnings that we have been seeing for decades are false,” CCIA spokesperson Jake Ward told Ars Technica in a Monday interview. “They are a misrepresentation of the law and a violation of consumers’ rights.”
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According to the complaint, such warnings “materially mispresent” US law. Fair use is given short shrift, and as a result, consumers are left with the impression that any use that the rightsholders do not expressly approve is illegal. “Consumers have the right to use the content in legal, noninfringing ways,” Ward said. “Putting these warnings on broadcasts, videotapes, and DVDs is both misleading and threatening.”
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