RE: My post yesterday “The SEC Makes One Hell of a Bad Call“
The New York Times reports today that the SEC has clarified their rule. Turns out they weren’t really after Joe Bleachersitter sending his blurry phone cam picture of pinpoint-sized outfielders to his Facebook page. The real targets of their rule, they say, are the bloggers and web site owners who capture video, images, and descriptions of the games and then post them on their ad-supported or subscription-based sites. In other words, people who are making money off what the SEC and its schools seek to (exclusively) turn to profit. And it’s not just the lucrative TV contracts that are at stake; they also worry about losing their monopoly on game and season highlight reels through DVD sales.
All ethical or legal considerations aside (such as whether it is right for sports leagues to maintain a monopoly over images and descriptions of their games), I’m still left wondering if the bad feeling raised by such ultimately unenforceable policies will end up being a bigger loss for the SEC than any actual dig into revenues by bloggers and fan site owners (paging the RIAA).