Copyright As Censorship: FIFA's Overaggressive Copyright Takedowns Target Fans Celebrating And Pussy Riot Protesting

from the copyright-censors dept

One of the talking points we heard in the run up to the EU Parliament's vote over the EU Copyright Directive was the laughable claim that Article 13 -- which would require mandatory upload filters for many sites -- could not possibly lead to censorship. Here was what UK collection society PRS for Music had to say about that issue:

...the argument is flawed for the simple reason that it assumes creators and producers are incentivised to block access to their works.

Centuries of copyright have proven this is not the case. Indeed, one of the core principles of copyright is that it incentivises the licensing of works. Requiring online platforms to obtain a licence will not lead to mass-scale blocking of copyright works online.

We talked about how silly this was in response (and pointed to dozens of articles we've written in the past about how copyright is used for censorship), but let's add another one to the pile. As you know, the World Cup just ended this past weekend, and FIFA, which certainly has some history being over aggressive on the "intellectual property" side of things, apparently was working overtime getting videos taken down from various platforms.

This resulted in lots of outraged fans especially over insane situations like when Kathryn Conn posted a 5 second video of her 7-year-old son celebrating a goal. She posted it to Twitter, where it was promptly taken down thanks to a highly questionable DMCA notice from FIFA. It is positively bizarre that anyone could possibly think that this video infringed on anyone's copyright, or that it somehow should require "licensing" from FIFA to show your 7-year-old celebrating a goal.

But, it's not just taking down what some might consider "inconsequential" videos of fans celebrating. As you may have heard, the well known collective Pussy Riot staged a protest by having some of its members run onto the field during the final between France and Croatia. All of those involved have been arrested and thrown in jail for 15 days and banned from visiting any sports event for three years.

And... you guessed it, it appears that FIFA decided to take the matter into its own hands and sent a DMCA takedown to have the video disappeared:

Oh, but no, copyright is never used for censorship, is it? It's just magically taking down videos of political protests... because it's an incentive to license the material, right?

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, copyright as censorship, dmca, free speech, protests, pussy riot, russia, soccer, world cup
Companies: fifa

Half Of NBA Teams Jump Into The NBA's New eSports NBA2K League, FIFA League To Start Soon

from the one-giant-step dept

With eSports exploding into a legitimate spectator event, both for in-person viewership and televised events, it was only a matter of time before professional sports leagues got in on the act. As it has been on so many things, the NBA became the first American league to announce it was creating its own eSports league, partnering with Take-Two Interactive and its NBA2K series to power its sponsored competition. When commissioner Adam Silver announced all of this in February, however, he was speaking for the league, but not the individual teams that make up that league. Asked at the time what he expected the participation level to be from individual teams, he said he expected about half to jump into this.

It turns out that projection was pretty much spot on, as 17 NBA teams ave officially agreed to participate in the league, lending their jerseys and branding to the games. Also released were some details about how the league will operate and how the games will be conducted.

The league will draft teams of five players to compete in a five-month season, which will mirror the NBA with a regular season, bracketed playoffs, and a final championship match to wrap it all up. Players will create their own avatars for competition, so no one will be using avatars of the recognizable basketball stars that appear in NBA 2K, like LeBron James or Kyrie Irving.

The Chicago Bulls are not among the teams participating, because the universe hates me and takes every opportunity to make me unhappy. That aside, the NBA's monopoly on a pro-league-backed eSports league will be short lived. In Europe, a FIFA eSports league is already in the works, with several European clubs buying in.

Netherlands’ Eredivisie, the country's highest soccer league, will launch its own esports league, the organization announced earlier today. All 18 clubs, among them the “Big Three” (Ajax Amsterdam, PSV Eindhoven, and Feyenoord) will participate in the league. The “E-Divisie” launched in association with EA SPORTS and Endemol Shine Netherlands, a TV production company.

You should expect the other major pro sports leagues to follow suit very, very quickly. As eSports begins to stretch its legs and expand its reach, these leagues are going to want to get in on what the NBA and soccer clubs are doing. And with major broadcast partners like ESPN bringing the product to the market, hopefully with all the polish and production one would expect of them, it's likely eSports growing popularity is about to explode.

Filed Under: basketball, esports, nba2k
Companies: fifa, nba

FIFA Pisses Away Free Advertising By Banning F1 Racer's Tribute Helmet To Germany's Futbol Team

from the they-must-hate-money dept

FIFA, the soccer/futbol/whatever organization that theoretically runs a sporting operation sure seems to actually be some kind of steroid-taking IP lawyer in practice instead. Much like the method by which the Olympics does their business, FIFA has always gone overboard in enforcing its trademarks. It insists on getting airline ads that don't even mention it pulled down, it goes after breweries, and it generally behaves like a psychopathic rich kid who thinks all the toys in the world are his and his alone.

Reader John Katos writes in with the latest head-scratching example of this. Nico Rosberg is big in the world of F1 racing and he wanted to celebrate the German's winning the World Cup with a helmet in an upcoming race. German pride, in other words, because when has that ever gone wrong?

Earlier this week, delighted with the national team's world cup victory in Brazil, Mercedes driver Rosberg announced he will wear a "special edition helmet" this weekend in Hockenheim. The 29-year-old German revealed on social media that the livery includes an image of "the FIFA trophy".

See that thing on top of the helmet? You know, the one that looks like Cthulu's claw reaching up to grip some kind of golden testicle? Well, that's the World Cup trophy, which, really you guys, come up with something a little better than that for the World freaking Cup. Regardless, the uber-lawyers over at FIFA saw this display of national pride and free FIFA advertising and took a dump on it.

We reported earlier that reproducing the image of the trophy falls foul of the world football federation FIFA's strict rules protecting its 'official marks'. The Mercedes driver's public relations manager Georg Nolte confirmed: "There will be an update on Nico's Germany helmet design today.

"(It) will be without (the) world cup trophy, but (now) with four stars on it."

Yes, rather than working out some kind of way to license the helmet for free so as not to risk the dreaded not-protecting-the-mark penalty that seems to drive so much of this heavy-handed nonsense, FIFA just killed off the free advertising. Quite sporting of them, if you ask absolutely no one.

Filed Under: advertising, germany, intellectual property, marketing, world cup
Companies: fifa

FIFA Orders Brazil To Overturn Ban On Selling Beer At World Cup Matches

from the I-am-the-law dept

One of the recurrent themes on Techdirt is the sense of entitlement the owners of various kinds of monopolies display, and their common belief that being able to maximize the profit from those monopolies trumps any other consideration.

For example, FIFA, the world governing body for soccer/football, uses its monopoly on organizing the World Cup to demand some rather extraordinary privileges. Here are just some of the things the UK government was prepared to accept as part of its bid to host the 2018 World Cup:

The U.K. said it would meet FIFA’s requirements to create a 2-kilometer perimeter around stadiums, and said the right to conduct commercial activities there was subject to the approval of FIFA or its appointees. The government also agreed to suspend some labor laws that affected FIFA’s activities and to lift restrictions on the import and export of foreign currency.

FIFA is currently trying to assert similar rights in Brazil, where the 2014 World Cup will be held:

Fifa General Secretary Jerome Valcke said the right to sell beer must be enshrined in a World Cup law the Brazilian Congress is considering.

Alcoholic drinks are currently banned at Brazilian stadiums and the country's health minister has urged Congress to maintain the ban in the new law.

FIFA evidently believes that keeping its sponsors happy (Budweiser is a "big Fifa sponsor" according to the article quoted above) is much more important than local laws or people's health. Valke explains:

"Alcoholic drinks are part of the Fifa World Cup, so we're going to have them. Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant but that's something we won't negotiate," he said.

"A bit arrogant"? Surely not...

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: beer, brazil, fifa, rights, world cup
Companies: fifa

FIFA Threatens To Sue Brewery, Because Dutch World Cup Fans Wore Orange

from the you-can't-do-that dept

FIFA, the organization that runs the World Cup, is notoriously aggressive in defending not just its own intellectual property, but those of any sponsors, while going to extreme lengths to crack down on any non-sponsor getting any kind of publicity whatsoever without paying. It's not unlike the Olympics in that manner. Of course, that leads to some absolutely ridiculous situations, like the one many of you are sending in about FIFA ejecting 36 Dutch World Cup team supporters for the massive sin of all wearing the same orange dresses. Why? Because the women all bought the dresses from a Dutch brewery, named Bavaria, so FIFA claims it was a viral marketing stunt by the brewery to capitalize on its IP without paying. In fact, FIFA is now threatening to sue. I'd love to see that lawsuit, because it's difficult to think of any sane reason why this should break any law. As someone from the brewery noted:

"Fifa does not have the monopoly on orange and people have the freedom to wear what they want."

What if a bunch of fans all just decided to wear the same things to show support for their team?

Of course, the really amusing part of all of this is that, without ejecting those women, I would bet most people would have had no idea at all that the orange dresses represented this brewery. Now, however, it's all over the press. Nice work FIFA. You just helped promote the brewery.

Filed Under: ambush marketing, dresses, fifa, orange, viral marketing, world cup
Companies: bavaria, fifa

For Staunch Copyright Defenders, Big Singers From Big Labels Seem To Copy From Others A Lot...

from the just-saying... dept

Reader Dan points us to a long, but fascinating article by someone tracing a number of stories involving famous Western pop stars copying famous songs that originated in Cameroon, without any credit (or, of course, money) -- including the song by Shakira that is currently the World Cup theme song -- which some folks did some online detective work to track down its origins:

Ze Bella who had retired from the Presidential Guards in 2002 was enjoying a quiet retirement in his village when he got a call from an acquaintance in France informing him that Shakira had just released a version of Zangalewa. This information was soon confirmed by Emile Kojidy another Golden Sounds alum now living in the United States. They were both right.

A few days earlier, the Internet had been inundated with buzz about the new song by Columbian pop star Shakira titled "Zaminamina" which was rumoured to be the official anthem for the FIFA 2010 World Cup. To many listeners, the song was eerily familiar and many bloggers and journalist sought to find out the origins of the song....

To Cameroonians and many African, the origins of the song was no mystery as they instantly recognized it as a remix of "Zangalewa". Thus began a frenzied online campaign to alert the world that this was not a Shakira original but a remix.

After the evidence became overwhelming, and people started complaining, Shakira's label (Sony) was forced to come to the table and settle (some believe that FIFA pushed them to make sure that the song was "cleared" before they would use it as the World Cup official song). Now, I, like many don't think there's anything wrong with musicians building on the works of others. It's how music has pretty much always been created. However, it does seem very hypocritical for all these big labels and big musicians to be whining about copyright infringement, when it appears that they try to get away with it themselves when they can.

Filed Under: cameroon, copying, music, shakira, world cup
Companies: fifa, sony

Kulula Responds To FIFA Legal Threats With Hilarious Clarifying Ad

from the this-is-not-an-ad-about-the-world-cup dept

In response to our post about FIFA threatening Kulula airlines in South Africa over its advertisment jokingly declaring itself the "unofficial national carrier of the 'you-know-what'," JJ sends over the news that Kulula has put together a new ad that looks similar to the old ad, but which changes the text to the even more ambiguous: "Not Next Year, Not Last Year, But Somewhere in Between" to avoid saying the dreaded "2010." The artwork in the ad is similar to the original, but clarifies that each thing that you might interpret as being about the World Cup is actually about something else. For example, the vuvuzelas (horns) are "definitely, definitely golf tees" and the guy who looks like he might be playing football is actually just a "man putting his right foot in, his right foot out and shaking it all about." Small versions are below, but be sure to click through for the larger versions: Original ad


Latest ad

Filed Under: south africa, trademark, world cup
Companies: fifa, kulula

FIFA Demands Airline Drop Ad That Didn't Mention FIFA At All

from the unofficial-sponsor-of-you-know-what dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about how the Olympics, notorious for trying to control everything associated with the Olympics to block anyone from doing any marketing around the games if they haven't paid up, got upset at company selling a t-shirt that read:

"Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 and 2011 Edition."

Now it looks like something similar has happened with the World Cup and the South African airline, Kulula. Kulula, if you don't know, is somewhat famous for its sense of humor. In particular, I really like the way the company recently redesigned one of its airplanes as "Flying 101": Along those lines, the airlines decided to make a joke of the limits that FIFA struck on sponsors of the World Cup and put out an advertisement calling itself the:

"Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know-What."

And, along with that it included images of stadiums, national flages and vuvuzelas (a type of horn regularly blown at football matches in South Africa). FIFA apparently sent a threat letter demanding Kulula pull the ad, calling it "ambush marketing." Apparently, FIFA has no sense of humor. After people got annoyed, FIFA put out a silly statement saying that it never said the airline couldn't use certain words or symbols -- but it just couldn't use them all in combination.

Of course, you have to imagine that all the additional attention to Kulula thanks to this "controversy" doesn't bother the airline one bit...

Filed Under: ads, trademark, world cup
Companies: fifa, kulula

Does It Make Sense That A Non-Official Advertiser Can't Give Away Sporting Events Tickets?

from the hard-to-see-why dept

Back in October, we wrote about how the Philadelphia Eagles were trying to stop radio stations from doing promotional giveaways of tickets they had legally purchased. The team basically claims that the terms (which no one reads nor technically "agrees" to) on the back of the ticket forbid such uses of the tickets. Instead, clearly, the Eagles wanted to sell the rights to do promotional giveaways. Now there's a similar lawsuit involving Major League Soccer and FIFA. JJ points us to a lawsuit in which the organization that handles marketing for both soccer organizations is quite upset at Black & Decker for doing ticket giveaway promotions. The reason why they're so upset? B&D competitor Makita is "the official power tool" of both soccer leagues in the US. In this case, they're arguing trademark infringement and breach of contract, though both seem questionable. If it's an accurate promotion, such that B&D is literally giving away legally purchased tickets and merchandise, then as long as it doesn't suggest endorsement from the soccer leagues, there shouldn't be much confusion. As for the breach of contract, if B&D never agreed to the contract, it's hard to see how they can be held to it.

Filed Under: advertising, eulas, promotions, sponsorships, tickets
Companies: black & dekker, fifa, major league soccer, makita