Photography, videotaping and copyright at the races (1 Viewer)

[.]

Many of you have probably heard or read about the controversy that NASCAR caused over the weekend by filing DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) claims to YouTube and having them yank videos of Kyle Larson's Nationwide crash that were taken by fans in the stands. YouTube a while later restored the videos with the following statement:

Our partners and users do not have the right to take down videos from YouTube unless they contain content which is copyright infringing, which is why we have reinstated the videos.

NASCAR has language on the back of their tickets similar to NHRA, basically stating that they own the copyright to any and all images, video or sounds. If you remember, NHRA pulled this same crap when fan videos of Scott Kalitta's crash hit YouTube, claiming copyright on videos not taken by them or ESPN.

Lawyer and former journalist Chip Stewart has another take:

Fans to a sporting event typically agree to a contract contained on the ticket. NASCAR’s ticket, for example, says that NASCAR has all rights to the images of the event itself.

But this flies in the face of copyright law, which classically does not allow one to copyright news and facts. To me, a recording of a fact is a fact. I thought back to the 1997 case of NBA v. Motorola, in which the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said that the NBA couldn’t prevent Motorola from broadcasting live game scores on a pager service — those were facts, not something the NBA could copyright and own.

The logic underlying that decision was that the NBA could copyright its official recordings — but not necessarily all recordings by anyone in the building. That’s what NASCAR was trying to do through its ticket policy.

The way copyright works now is that the copyright automatically attaches at the moment the work is created; in this case, when the fan recorded the video. Now, NASCAR was asserting that it actually owned those images because of the ticket. But to enforce the copyright, NASCAR would need to actually register it. And I don’t think NASCAR could actually walk into the copyright office, carrying the recording and a copy of the ticket, and be granted enforceable rights to that video.

For their takedown request to be honored by YouTube would basically require that — YouTube would need to acknowledge that NASCAR actually had a copyright to those images.

A good read if you're interested:
Daytona crash video tests fair use, copyright for fans and journalists | Poynter.

And a previous article:
YouTube restores Daytona crash video after NASCAR blocks it out of ‘respect’ | Poynter.

If you catch something on camera and share it on the internet you might want to remember this.

 

[flapjack]

I read these links and am reminded of a fellow who who used to post on here about exactly this topic. I can't remember the guy's name, but I'm sure he'll chime in if he's still around

This also reminds me of when U2 sued Negativeland for use U2 as an album name, or when Apple Records sued Apple Computer over the use of the name Apple. And that was before DMCA. In my opinion, DMCA is abused, especially when it is used for takedown notices. I gather that is exactly what NASCAR did...

 

[.]

I read these links and am reminded of a fellow who who used to post on here about exactly this topic. I can't remember the guy's name, but I'm sure he'll chime in if he's still around

It was probably me. I've argued my point about this here several times in the past that NHRA doesn't automatically own the copyright despite what they like to claim. This is a good reminder to not automatically roll over and play dead if something like this happens to you.

 

[vegasnitro]

It was probably me. I've argued my point about this here several times in the past that NHRA doesn't automatically own the copyright despite what they like to claim. This is a good reminder to not automatically roll over and play dead if something like this happens to you.

There is really not much you can do if YouTube pulls your vid for copyright infringement, whether the claim is valid or not. If they take it down, it is nigh on impossible to get them to put it back up. Most people just change the length of the vid by a second or 2, rename the file and re-upload rather than fight the copyright BS.

In the Daytona case, it was a very high profile event and there were many fan videos posted, so YouTube was forced to get a little more involved and after intially taking the videos down, they restored the links (I am sure after doing some sort of legal consultation). It is good publicity for YouTube as it is perceived they were sticking up for their users.

 

[HEMI6point1]

I remember on a past Youtube account I had, I posted a crash comp and it was DMCA'ed by Formula 1 for having one of Jacques Villeneuve's crashes in it. Mind you he walked away and nobody got hurt. I tried to fight it, but was not successful. Meanwhile, video's of his father's fatal crash are all over Youtube completely untouched.

 

[Justin@NRE]

The big picture here of why they do this?

When it comes to crashes, it's out of respect for victims and potential liability lawsuits. It does create havoc in that many non-expert people devise their own opinions on what actually happened and rumors spread whether they are actual fact or well sold speculation. Rumors affect public opinion, or there would be no reason/market for blogs and message boards.

I'd also note that sanctioning bodies usually produce their own "Thrills and Spills" videos that they want you to purchase using their duly authorized footage.

Why they claim copyright is because, well, if you can freely view something, why attend in person or watch it on TV where you have to be subjected to their advertising or fan experience/activation promised to their sponsors? Sanctioning bodies and race teams have advertisers who pay incredible amounts of money to have their products branded by the sanctioning bodies and they don't want you going around the experience they are trying to give you for their advertisers. If free access video becomes too prevalent, they lose value to their sponsors. And sponsors are what keep these motorsports spectacles in business.

They also have still photographers who are authorized to take pictures of everything, which are still subject to NHRA's and the photographer's discretion as far as use.

NHRA actually loosened their grip on the copyright stuff this year. Before the only video you could take was for personal use in helping the performance of your car. Not supposed to post the videos online for public use, especially of national event laps.

Now they are allowing pit footage and everything but actual racing to be posted, but only for Pro Teams and only AFTER the ESPN show has aired. And at that, the video must be tagged with a Mello Yello Drag Racing Series logo, have a link to the TV schedule, can't be over 2 minutes long.... Then it can only be used on the team website or through the official team social media accounts..

Now they can't police the entire world on this, but they can police teams for violations. And should any other public violations come to their attention, they will try to have the video removed. There is nothing wrong with video for personal/home use, but the second you post it in a public forum, you're starting to walk on thin ice.

 

[TSK]

If you catch something on camera and share it on the internet you might want to remember this.

How does this affect those on the 'mater who post their pictures of a race weekend?
Unless NHRA tries to take down ALL images, and not just certain specific photos (such as only those of PRO teams), I don't see how they can justify taking any down.

Just photoshop out any background stuff that gives away the photo's location and show only the car.

 

[.]

How does this affect those on the 'mater who post their pictures of a race weekend?
Unless NHRA tries to take down ALL images, and not just certain specific photos (such as only those of PRO teams), I don't see how they can justify taking any down.

Well, if they wanted to be real butts about it they could probably claim copyright and demand you take them down. From my first post:

The way copyright works now is that the copyright automatically attaches at the moment the work is created; in this case, when the fan recorded the video. Now, NASCAR was asserting that it actually owned those images because of the ticket. But to enforce the copyright, NASCAR would need to actually register it. And I don’t think NASCAR could actually walk into the copyright office, carrying the recording and a copy of the ticket, and be granted enforceable rights to that video.

For their takedown request to be honored by YouTube would basically require that — YouTube would need to acknowledge that NASCAR actually had a copyright to those images.

Replace NASCAR with NHRA, video with photos and YouTube with whatever website and you're still dealing with the same type of situation.

 

[the zone]

the instant NHRA or any other racing entity says fans can't take photos, is the day that sport dies as far and watching it live goes.

Dean

 

[Shaggy]

They will never stop it now that its so easy to take photos and video with phones...

 

[Toby]

Awhile ago I thought it would be fun to start a business that would sell text messages of round by round results of NHRA races. The results would have been pretty much instantly after the last pair of cars went down the track.

One thing I was concerned about was the 'rights' of the race results. So I did some research. Its been about five years since I worked on this so I don't remember exact parts of it. None the less, I found out that a couple years before I looked into doing this deal, the NFL and USA Today go into a pissing match about USA Today's fantasy league subscription results and the NFL wanting a piece of the action. Again I don't remember the exact results of the court proceedings but the Court found that once the results/statistics/etc were released to the public it was carte blanche. It was something along the lines that yes the NFL obviously was the main cause for the game but the results of the game had no impact from the NFL therefore the NFL didn't own the results of the game. With the amount of fantasy leagues I would have to say that the decision wasn't ever overturned.

It does bring up an interesting scenario. Hypothetically, a group of guys decide to show up at each NHRA race and pay admission. They bring video cameras connected to a server wirelessly they have in a van across the street from the race track. The van is connected to a T1 internet connection. Then they set up a website and do a pay per view of a race.
So in essence this group has taken posting videos on YouTube taken by a paying attendee of a race to the next level. They are a paying attendee but doing it live and making money off it. Really just a step below this is the professional photographers taking pictures at a race for profit.

I really don't know where in the hell I am going with this, I have been writing code for a project, drinking beer and found this thread while waiting for my code to compile. I guess my point is there are a couple of ways to interpret NASCAR wanting to control content. Yes its a big brother deal with his thumb on the customers fore-head yet if they don't get a handle on it now, it could take on a life of its own and really impact their income.

 

[flapjack]

I have been writing code for a project, drinking beer and found this thread while waiting for my code to compile.

Waiting for code to compile -- been there, done that. You might find this humorous...

xkcd: Compiling

 

[Toby]

I was able to use that excuse about ten years ago. Now when I hit 'compile' it only takes a couple of seconds yet it it still gives me a good reason to get away from the code.

One of my first professors in college talked about having to take a punch sheet to a main frame to compile when he was going to school. I couldn't imagine the extent of error checking when you knew a days worth of programming for an assignment could be wasted by the smallest typo.

Waiting for code to compile -- been there, done that. You might find this humorous...

xkcd: Compiling

 

[flapjack]

One of my first professors in college talked about having to take a punch sheet to a main frame to compile when he was going to school. I couldn't imagine the extent of error checking when you knew a days worth of programming for an assignment could be wasted by the smallest typo.

The company I work for started in 1978 and the input "file" of choice back then was punch cards, and the software was delivered in hand by reels of tape (people flew across the country to do so). We still call those files input decks. I can't imagine trying to do simulation using punchcards, not after seeing GUIs for setting up the jobs.

Anyway, if you are a UNIX programmer, make sure you check out GNU make's -j option. It sets up make to run compilations in parallel. Very handy for speeding up builds of large projects. Not sure if there are similar things for Visual Studio/XCode or any of the java based build systems (like Ant).

 

[vegasnitro]

Not sure if there are similar things for Visual Studio/XCode or any of the java based build systems (like Ant).

What do you call 2,000 Java developers at the bottom of the sea?

A good start.

 

[flapjack]

What do you call 2,000 Java developers at the bottom of the sea?

A good start.

so I am not the only one who dislikes java and the push towards it. good to know...

 

[vegasnitro]

so I am not the only one who dislikes java and the push towards it. good to know...

In my last job, I provisioned 4G cell sites, the GUI for Samsung, Motorola and Huawei were all Java based. They were buggy as hell, slow as hell and Motorola would not run on the latest version of Java, so we were switching between versions of Java all the time. And then there are the crappy Java based web apps or plug ins that will do anything from slow down website you are trying to load to crashing your browser.

So yeah ... I am not a fan.

Sorry for the thread jack.

 

[flapjack]

In my last job, I provisioned 4G cell sites, the GUI for Samsung, Motorola and Huawei were all Java based. They were buggy as hell, slow as hell and Motorola would not run on the latest version of Java, so we were switching between versions of Java all the time. And then there are the crappy Java based web apps or plug ins that will do anything from slow down website you are trying to load to crashing your browser.

So yeah ... I am not a fan.

Sorry for the thread jack.

java - write once, crash anywhere!

yeah, I hijacked the thread with programming stuff. funny how threads on nitromater derail, and somewhat quickly...