Posted on 02/01/2007 7:38:48 AM PST by pctech
Fall Creek Baptist Church Family...
We regret to inform you that we have had to cancel our bash to view the Colts game this Sunday in a family friendly environment due to the fact that the NFL believes we would be in violation of the Copyright Act, because we had planned to show the game on a screen bigger than a 55 inch diagonal. We have appealed to their legal counsel and exhausted all options without success. We have been informed that the only exceptions to view the game are given to sports bars and restaurants. While we have argued that we only intend to provide a family oriented environment that will make no profit from the showing, the NFL claims that our event cannot proceed by law. Therefore, we have no choice but to challenge this in court or cancel the event. We choose to cancel the event. We deeply regret that we have been prohibited by the NFL from providing a family friendly environment for celebrating the Colts great season.
Pastor John
At least I know someone read that part of my post. It's a hard question. If you want Churches to have free rein to abuse others' intellectual property for a good cause, you have to be prepared to allow all other groups to do the same.
if they called it anything other than a Super Bowl, party, and called it like the do at the local radio station in D.C. they call it Elliots Big A@@ bowl party or something to that effect.
Several reasons that I do not watch NFL footbal any longer.
Executive Summary: The NFL has turned on its fans and is trying to milk them for every dollar.
Detail:
1. Seat licenses are ridiculously expensive, runnning to as much as 30,000.
2. After the the seat license is purchased, youthen have to buy season tickets which are ridiculously overpriced.
3. When coming into a new town, the NFL arranges with local banks to fund seat reast licenses through the use of home equity loans. Ridiculous.
4. The NFl is too restrictive on the use of Superbowl and other surrounding copyrights.
5. The Big One> Haviing been involved in a small way in TV, nothing goes on the air that is not scripted, including ad libs. Janet Jackson's breast shot was most likely written and rehearsed before air time. The claim that it was a wardrobe malfuntion is absurd.
Fair enough, but I do have a problem when the NFL gives the pastor the reason that the screen is too big, and then gives the Indianapolis media a different excuse. It makes me wonder what the leagues excuse will be tomorrow.
I would. I'd back the baby butchers all the way, against anyone who'd try to dictate where, how & with whom they could view broadcast TV signals.
Do you feel you have the right to record and sell copies of a broadcast television program?
Remember the NFL doesn't claim anything about Janet Jackson incident being anything other than it being MTV's f$%^up. As such they've banned MTV from ever having anything to do with any NFL production again, and to restore goodwill when the NFL contracts came up for renewal Viacom released CBS off on their own so it no longer has even the slightest relationship to MTV. I agree it wasn't an accident, but the people who planned it apparently not only did a good job of keeping the NFL in the dark but also the guys in the CBS production booth (thus the apparently "oh sh!t" cutaway to a blimp shot before the song was fully over).
Bump for later reading
***********
Not bad. Not bad at all.
It's a moot point, the church changed the admission charge to free and still no dice.
Here is the chronology of excuses by the NFL
You can't do this cuz your screen is to big.
(Paster indicated that he will try to come up with a different solution)
NFL changes it's excuse to 'You can't do this cuz you're charging admission.
(Paster changes policy and informs league that their will be no fee charged)
NFL Changes it's excuse to 'You are going to show a christian message from Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy while at the same time using the words "Super Bowl" to advertise your event and you can't do that'.
It's quite apparent that no matter what he proposes to do, the NFL will simply come up with another excuse to shit on his plans.
On another level, I don't see a good reason for a church to want to show the Super Bowl anyway. Aren't a lot of the commericials completely inappropriate for a church setting? Surely the church wouldn't propose showing the game but censoring the commercials, right? Which means that they'll be exposing the children of their congregation to commercials that parents could just shut off at home.
" I agree it wasn't an accident, but the people who planned it apparently not only did a good job of keeping the NFL in the dark but also the guys in the CBS production booth"
I doubt it. Too much money at stake.
Several yars ago, the NFL was broadcasting the SB to churches without problems. Is it possible that there will another x rated event at halftime and they have elected to close out churches because of the potential fall out?
And apparently lost. As a result of that Viacom lost CBS and the potential to ever be involved with the NFL again.
I don't have any belief as to why the NFL is doing it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.