By Chris Williams for The Register. This
story was reproduced with permission.
As sport has become big business, the corporations that run it
are seeking greater control over how events are communicated to the
public. Last year's Rugby World Cup saw several news organisations
butt heads with the International Rugby Board over the
up-to-the-minute online text coverage that has become popular with
sports fans forced to follow the game from their desk.
Big Sport is now lobbying politicians to create new "rights".
Some early fruits of their lobbying campaign were discussed at the
European Parliament today. Amendments to a report on sports laws
being debated in Strasbourg could grant governing bodies such as
FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) too much power
over news reports, publishers say.
The debate has been sharpened by the imminent Beijing Olympics,
where it's feared that as well as jumping through IOC hoops,
reporters will face interference from Chinese authorities.
One of the
amendments adopted by the Parliament states:
[The European Parliament] calls
on the European Commission and Member States to introduce
legislation and/or strengthen existing regulations and to attach
particular importance to respecting intellectual property rights
relating to copyright, commercial communications, trademarks and
images, names, media rights and any other spin-offs from the
sporting events organisers and clubs are running, so as to protect
the professional sport economy...
The amendments allow for "fair" news reporting of sporting
events, but do not specify who'll get to decide what consitutes
"fair". Journalists' groups suspect it will be the executives who
sit on the governing boards of sports that have grown rich on their
fans' enthusiasm.
In a statement ahead of the vote, Francisco Pinto Balsemão,
chairman of the European Publishers Council said: "It is obvious
that governing bodies are lobbying MEPs for newly-invented 'IP
rights' including the protection of the event as a whole,
information and spin-offs arising from the event, none of which
exists under existing intellectual property rights regimes."
Iain Connor, an intellectual property partner at law firm
Pinsent Masons, said: "A football match is not a performance for
the purposes of copyright because you can't reproduce it. It isn't
choreographed."
Governing bodies have been successful in controlling audiovisual
recordings of sporting events, Connor said, but they should be wary
of trying to snatch too much control over the press.
"It's a chicken and egg situation - is sport popular because it
is reported on, or do people read reports because sport is popular?
There needs to be a symbiotic relationship."
He used the example of a fantasy football league to highlight
the permanent tension between the two sides. "If I report accurate
data that can be used to make money, you can see that the governing
body might claim some of that. But they can't. It's my intellectual
endeavour, I own the copyright."
Balsemão said: "News media and journalists accept the need to
balance the interests of governing bodies and the press, but MEPs
should be wary of adopting amendments which could damage press
freedom. We need a more informed and detailed debate of the
consequences before considering such steps."
Now the MEPs have made their recommendations, it'll be up to the
European Commission whether to pass new regulations, and then
individual countries as to how they're implemented.
UPDATE, 12/05/2008: Contrary to this report's
original introduction, MEPs actually rejected the two key
amendments that sought to create an intellectual property right for
sports.
Balsemao welcomed the rejection on Friday: "As news
organisations with large, sports-hungry audiences and readers, we
are relieved and delighted that the European Parliament has largely
rejected moves to empower sports events organisers to the detriment
of press freedom and ultimately of the public."
The European Publishers Council said it was unfortunate the MEPs
did adopt an amendment that appears to discriminate in favour of
audiovisual against other news media.
© The Register
2008
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