Copyright Dispute Leads To NFL Not Scouting College Juniors
from the copyright-gone-insane dept
Brooks writes "For once it looks like the NFL isn't the bad guy in an intellectual property dispute, and actually are the ones trying to explain some of the issues with copyright maximalism to colleges. The problem is that the company who records scouting tapes for eight major conferences has convinced colleges that the NFL should pay for the right to use those tapes to scout players, in particular juniors who are trying to decide whether to enter the draft.From the NFL's point of view, the junior scouting program exists to help keep kids in school if they're unlikely to succeed in the draft in their junior year (it's certainly in the NFL's interest to have those kids continue to develop their talent for one more year). The colleges, of course, see the "value" the tapes bring to the NFL and want a piece of that pie. So far, the NFL seems to be sticking to its guns and basically saying "fine, we just won't scout your players." The dispute has escalated to the point where some colleges aren't even letting NFL scouts look at tape on campus.
There's a bit of a sweet good-for-the-gander element to the story, since the NFL has been on the other side of the content value argument pretty much forever. It does kind of suck, though, that some college juniors will be entering the draft based on overoptimistic expectations. And it can't be good for a college's football program if it becomes known that it doesn't allow NFL scouting."
Yes, you read that right. It seems that the in this era of copyright maximalism, a company is trying to claim copyright on scouting tapes that are helpful to everyone (teams get better scouting info to make decisions, players are more accurately ranked, etc.). A friend who follows minor league baseball mentioned this week that Major League Baseball just took down its own scouting videos that had been online, so I'm wondering if baseball is now facing a similar problem as well.
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Filed Under: amateurs, copyright, football, scouting
Companies: ncaa, nfl
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If the article is correct, XOS intends to sue the NFL even if it buys the tapes from another vendor. The theory appears to be that XOS has an agreement with SEC teams, so if an SEC team plays a Big East team and the Big East team sells the NFL a tape of the game, XOS is entitled to something. But XOS cannot have a copyright over a tape it did not make! It must be thinking it will sue based on its agreement with the SEC... but that contract claim lies against the SEC (if anyone,) not the NFL.
This is big money stuff, and the way it is reported in the article makes exactly no sense. I think SI is the problem, here, and the real story is not quite this stupid. Anyhow, I hope that's the case.
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NFL scouting
It's not like there aren't thousands of great potential players out there - the NFL can't find them all no matter what it does. If some people don't want to be looked at, that's not going to hurt the NFL any, but it's going to have the good high school players going elsewhere, once word gets around.
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Farm Teams
The NFL has used colleges as farm teams for decades. In the long run this probably isn't a good system for colleges or the NFL because they have different objectives.
The NFL should just set up its own system of farm teams like Baseball has. That way they would not be hampered by silly NCAA requirements for things like academic performance. Players in the farm team system could focus more on the important issues such as how to successfully cover your steroid use and how to get away with various types of felonies.
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What's this "difference" you speak of?
Ultimate objective for NFL: make as much money as possible
Ultimate objective for Div I football programs: make as much money as possible
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