SEC plans "new media" policy similar to NFL ... lawsuits a-comin'!

I've been thinking, and I can't think of an SEC territory in which the NFL is king. The AJC's reader surveys always say UGA football is bigger than the Falcons.

 

That's what I meant by no cellphones, which usually have cameras in them.

 

The Titans have edged ahead of UT in Nashville proper (and Vandy isn't even in the photo) and New Orleans is more of a Saints town than an LSU town. And NFL trumps the Gators from the I-4 corridor south.

 

I was thinking cameras. Tell me how many times a fan, who maybe goes to a game every couple of years or a student, brings a camera to take a pic in the stands cause it's such a thrill.
it happens a lot, but Slime -- putting dollars ahead of the people who helped the $EC get that money -- screws the little people over.
Fuckabuncha Mike Slime.

 

This seems more about preventing uploads to myspace and such sites....just a way to protect themselves from cameras roaming everywhere.

Similar to some of the blogger rules for posting about game action and such.

The shocking part was how long those rules were...I couldn't sit through more than a couple pages

 

Maybe among those who read the paper. At the risk of generalizing, pro sports are bigger among the young and minorities, who don't read the newspaper in as large a number as old, white people. When Vick was in his heyday, the Falcons were the biggest game in town in the ATL.

 

Now that I have printed out the policy document and slept with it under my pillow for a couple of days, I have two significant sticking points:

1, The prohibition of sales of photos from games is objectionable enough, and is probably illegal if it would constrain us from selling an image to Sports Illustrated (which we did last year), but is twinned with the SEC asserting its right to buy the same images at our most favorable resale rate.

2, The long sentence on re-use throws its arms around a lot of stuff that might keep you from doing a memory book after a championship season, say, and would surely keep you from doing posters on T-shirts as promotional items.

 

As good a time as any to quote this post, nodding my head in agreement.

 

You beat me to it Henry! I kept seeing that still photos weren't affected, and they most certainly are, in a more eggregious way than even online video. (And by the way, from my reading of this, the 72-hour limit on video appears to apply only to online. The clause "other than for a regularly scheduled television newscast" seems to have been overlooked. TV stations can still show highlights and use archived video. They just can't use it online, apparently, which still is a major issue for both newspapers and TV.

But the more interesting issue is the SEC's claim that newspapers can't sell photos their photographers take at events. This, as later is made clear, does not apply to photos that have been published by the paper. Maybe this isn't an issue, since most papers are putting up such large photo galleries. But the SEC reserving the right to buy newspaper photos and then use them in their own publications while attempting to stop the originating outlets from profiting from them doesn't sound like it could possibly hold up in court.

The thing is, which is going to be the first organization to refuse to sign, to walk away from the credentials and go to court? It would seem that a temporary injunction from some of these restrictions could be obtained rather quickly, given the quick damage that not covering SEC games could do to some papers in the south.

 

Power corrupts. It's pretty simple.

This was designed for money to flow like a North Florida mullet into CBS, ESPN and XOS (EDIT: And, of course, the SEC).

I can't wait for Mike Slive to claim the right to edit my stories, too. That's probably next.

 

At some point, they'll ask for us to pay for press box seats. Something small at first, then ramped up to outrageous luxury box prices.

That'll drive out most, if not all, media outlets. Then the schools/teams/league can send out press releases on the game that will be e-mailed directly to the fans.

 

They won't be press releases or at least not titled as such. What the schools will do and have already started to do is hire laid-off sportswriters or hire them before they are laid-off and start an "independent" magazine/publication/e- news service that will generate copy on State U.
It will almost always be fluffy and soft, nothing negative, and the big-money givers along with the regular Joe tailgate alumni will receive the information.
It will be longer and more detailed with just enough navel-gazing insider tidbits to keep the hardcores happy and also wound up that the local paper has slashed staff/travel/space on good Ol' State U.

It is happening in my town, right now. A laid off college beat writer has been hired to do exactly that. And on here, stories from all over the country are trickling out about what other schools are doing.