What are the legal issues surrounding the streaming of live sports events? I am wanting to add this to my website to help attract new visitors but is it legal? The stream is from another source (P2P TV) so I am not hosting any legal material. Also, I'm not going to be saving any part of the production. I am going to embed the video into my site so it plays live, hosting nothing. Whats your views on this? -d
Whether or not you host the material or not is of no relevance legally. Professional sports broadcasts are the property of the league (NBA, NFL, ect...) and cannot be legally re-broadcast without permission by the league.
I understand. But, why aren't these P2P TV stations shut down yet? They've been on for years now. Is it because people are free to broadcast anything they want?
There can be several reasons. Maybe the sports leagues don't know about them, or they have paid for the rights to do so. It is also possible that they have not been taken down because P2P networks that do not have central servers are hard to go after (that is the actual network, not the websites that have the links). Perhaps it is just that there are so many of them that some of them haven't been taken down yet. It could be that they are hosted off-shore and run by people in countries that do not hold that much regard for other countries laws. It is also possible that some of the sites you are talking about are in the middle of legal procedures. There are any number of reasons why some sites might be operating. Just because you see something that somebody else is doing, that doesn't mean that you understand what is happening in the background. It also doesn't make it legal . There are criminals on the internet just like there are criminals on the street. Somebody broke into my car, but nobody was arrested. Does that mean it's legal to break into cars? No. It took years to put Al Capone away. Does that mean that his activities were legal because they couldn't put him in jail? No. People cannot broadcast anything they want.
Is there any way to get around this? Maybe I can put a legal disclaimer prior to entering, where the visitor must agree that the website cannot be held responsible for any content and nothing illegal is hosted on the site. Also, a link to the program where the hosting is taking place. Would this work and would I be able to "cover myself" of any legal troubles? I really have a good idea and I think it could take off it this is put in place. Help me out DigitalPoint. Thanks -d
How do you plan on getting the streaming links? I understand that in your plan they will come from P2P TV, but how will the links get from there to your site? Will you research and find them? Will you get them from some type of RSS feed? Will users submit the links?
I will use javascript to embed them from the source who is hosting/broadcasting the production. In terms of finding them, I have sites which allow me to know what is being broadcast. Will this work?
No. There are two main reasons (not the only ones). You are in control of the content. Whether you are using scripts that give you the links or you put the links on yourself, you are in charge of the content. No disclaimer will protect you from content thaqt you generate. If you put it up, then you are responsible regadless of any disclaimer. The only way around that is if the links are generated by the users of the site, not you. That is still not enough and brings us to the second thing. You have to have a representative listed with the copyright office so that they know who to contact if there is a complaint. There is much more too it, but your idea as described doesn't even come close to being legal.
A copyright holder has the exclusive right to display a work publicly -- therefore whether you are hosting the material or not -- you're infringing on copyright. See: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000106----000-.html
Other ideas on how to do this? None. The licensing fee to do this for multiple leagues would be more than you would likely make on such a site (probably in the xx or xxx millions, Nascar got $4.4 billion for an 8 year TV deal). Realistically, your choices are to move on to a new idea or do it knowing full well that you are violating laws and hope that you don't get caught. Just remember, sports leagues and networks have a lot of money and are very protective of there copyrights.
I was just thinking (not sure if this is legal) , there might be some TV channel that broadcasts the games live, and well, you might be able to embed their broadcast into your website. It might work. However, I'm not sure on the legal status of it, doesn't sound too illegal though
Open up shop over in a Scandinavian country, their copyright laws are much more lax than ours. How do you think thepiratebay torrentspy, etc get away with passing on torrent files. Hollywood has more money than the NFL and if there was anything they could do about it they would have already. Hope this helps
The two you list get away with it not just by being hosted in another country but by being owned by people in other countries. Thepiratebay is registered to someone in Sweden and the other to somebody in the Solomon Islands. Hosting a site in another country does not protect you from your country's laws (especially in the US). Others get away just by the large volume of such sites. You would either need to fake the registrar data or get somebody in another country to go into business with. False data in the registrar info makes it harder for them to track you, but not impossible. Though it would be likely that they would just try to have the domain shut down rather than pay the expense of finding you. But you never know when they want to make an example. Trusting someone you don't know in another country... they might just take the whole site from you (their name is on all the documents after all). If for some reason they are busted, how likely do you think it would be that they would give up their partner too? Depending on your TLD, being hosted in another country does not protect you from having the authorities take your domain from you. By authorities, I mean the likes of ICANN (not the police). They don't care where your site is hosted. If it is brought to there attention that you are violating copyright, they can take it from you (same with trademarks). Country TLDs that are controlled within the country are a different story. Of course, having your domain taken from you is a far cry from being sued or fined.
Thanks bluegrass, learn something new everyday. I was actually referring to opening a business in another country and the company being the legal entity that owns the site. All things are traceable, I get that. good luck on pirating ... I hear it is quite a lucrative business:]
In the US, and in other countries, opening a business in another country does not mean that you are free of your countries laws when practicing that business. Especially when the business has a reach outside that country (which any web-based system would have).
Copyright penalities are harsh. The worst: Website shutdown; statutory damages -- 7 figure lawsuit; a sojourn in prison. By the way, what you're trying to do is unequivocally violating copyright.