French Sports Leagues Say Non! To YouTube

from the how-do-you-say-promotional-value-in-French? dept

Wed, Jun 6th 2007 6:35pm — Mike Masnick

It would appear that France's top soccer league and tennis organization suffer the same marketing blindness that caused the Premier League to sue YouTube because its most active fans were helping to promote the sport of soccer for them. The two French sports organizations have joined the lawsuit against YouTube, claiming that by allowing fans to share sporting moments, it was somehow (a) Google's fault and (b) costing the sports league's money. The reality is that (a) it's the responsibility of the uploader, not Google and (b) these videos help promote the sport and get more people to watch.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

10 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Xanius, 6 Jun 2007 @ 9:46pm

Yeah but...
They can get more money out of google right now than they can get from advertising. At least that's how they see it, however wrong it may be.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
lili, 6 Jun 2007 @ 10:49pm

it is rediculouse to sue you Tube for promoting soccer. I am glad this is not a monopoly.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
dave parker, 6 Jun 2007 @ 11:47pm

If they don't want it on Youtube...
If they don't want it on Youtube, and they own the rights
to it, it shouldn't be on Youtube. If it's on Youtube,
they should have the right to sue them to take it down,
even if we think it's ridiculous.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
mike allen, 7 Jun 2007 @ 12:41am

I have said it before and i will say it again i dont like soccer but if i did and toke a camera to a game what i film is MY copyright no one else's if i choose to put that film on you tube that is my decision no one else's and i would argu that point in court if need be. if i recored from TV then that would be copyright violation. the owner of copyright is the person who takes the images or if paid then by the person paying. a sport is a public place if the owners don't want film being taken then they should prevent cameras being admitted.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Xanius, 7 Jun 2007 @ 1:06am

Re: If they don't want it on Youtube...
They shouldn't have the right to sue youtube first. They need to send letters informing youtube that there is content they don't want published and have it taken down.

You sue after youtube refuses to cooperate, but since youtube would cooperate they are skipping step 1 and going straight for the money shot.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
anonymous, 7 Jun 2007 @ 1:52am

fu#$ you tube
fu#$ you tube man they have made things impossible
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Team Tutorials, 7 Jun 2007 @ 4:52am

NHL
It looks like the NHL is the only league that sees value in sharing content. Of course, they could use the extra viewers.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
an actual guy who follow soccer in France, 7 Jun 2007 @ 4:59am

"it is rediculouse to sue you Tube for promoting soccer."

No, it's not!! Did you actually saw a recent match of french soccer Ligue 1?
Even if you're a diehard soccer fan it is a borefest!
heck in less than a month we already knew that OL (soccer team of the city of Lyon) would be the next leader.
Seriously they're taking a step forward, I say it should be youtube user that sue youtube for broadcasting this borefest.

Consider this :
* soccer (football) is the National sport (biggest number of licencees => large number of amateurs if you will)
* nobody, bar places near Lyon, cared about the national championship (champion's league or UEFA however....) after the first 3 months
* add the poor quality of the actual matches >.>

For the us people, imagine a sport that have the popularity and wiedspread interestof NFL/NHL/Baseballall rolled into one.
Now imagine people being more interested in ANY league outside the country more than they are in the actual country
=> then : Bienvenue en France

For tennis, appart from Roland Garros, you have no matches that take place in France broadcasted (bar Olympics and such)
yep you have to go cable or satellite to get to see 'l'open de Paris'

yes it kinda suck

now since nobody said anything about rugby then most people that care in watching interesting sports are seeing it as an improvement
as we say in Ligue1 : 0-0 ftw
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Phil, 7 Jun 2007 @ 11:55am

French Sports Leagues Say Non! To YouTube
LOL. More people who would rather shoot the messenger than put time and effort into going after the source.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2007 @ 1:42am

IOO7K7MK78K
[ link to this | view in thread ]