Reuters, AP Refuse To Cover Cricket Matches Over Restrictive Press Accreditation Rules

from the but-football?-baseball? dept

Sports leagues around the world have been trying to put more and more restrictive rules on various journalists and news organizations when it comes to reporting on their events. In the US, both the NFL and the MLB have put ridiculous restrictions on what reporters can write about or post on their websites. While, technically, these leagues cannot stop news organizations from covering their events, they can restrict what kind of access they have. Of course, for basic coverage, when the events are televised, reporters could just as easily cover the event while watching it on TV. Still, it's been disappointing that the major news organizations have refused to stand up to the football and baseball leagues over this attempt to restrict their reporting.

Apparently, they only do that on sports that don't get as much attention (in the US, at least).

Last year, we wrote how the press was planning to boycott various cricket matches over similar attempts to limit reporting. And, once again, major news organizations like Reuters are proudly announcing that they will not be covering certain cricket matches due to the press policies. The Associated Press has announced similar plans, and says that the AFP is also refusing to cover the matches. At what point do these sports leagues realize that they're better off with press coverage than without?

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Even The Open Source Community Gets Overly Restrictive At Times

from the stop-worrying-about-the-freeloaders dept

Reader Brad sent in a fascinating post from a little while back by Steve Streeting, a software developer who created an open source 3D rendering engine called OGRE. In the post, Streeting describes his evolving view on open source licenses. He basically points out that that open source licensing -- the kind that forces anyone who uses the code to open up and contribute back their code -- is actually creating an unnecessary restriction on developers as well, and it often doesn't make sense to have such restrictions. It's really quite a fascinating post, that brings up a number of issues I hadn't really thought about too much. For example, he points out that the restrictions aren't very helpful for code, because the best code contributions are from those who are contributing code willingly anyway -- so the restrictions are meaningless for them. Separately, he points out that the restrictions on licenses, such as the LGPL, simply are too complex and too restrictive for some developers, and the end result is fewer developers, which is the last thing you should want:

It was at this point that I realised that my previous opinions about permissive licenses not providing enough safeguards against exploitation for an open source project were off-base. In practice, open source projects don't really need protection, because their best contributors are going to be there regardless (yes, I realise the GPL provides more protection to end users who want to get at the source code, that's not what I'm considering here). 'Freeloaders' -- people who use or modify the open source project for their own ends but give no code or community contribution back -- are always going to exist; even under the GPL it's easy to freeload, if you make your money from hosting services for example, and thus license choice has little impact on the scale (if not the nature) of the freeloading. Besides the annoyance of 'that guy took my work and made some money out of it' -- which you have to accept as an inevitable outcome of going open source, so stick to making proprietary software if that bugs you -- freeloaders have little negative effect on an open source project, and actually their use can contribute positively to [publicity for the project]. The key is to recognise that in practice you can really just ignore freeloaders, and instead concentrate on maximising the positive contributors in your community.

So, if we acknowledge that the people whose contributions we actually want are those who contribute voluntarily, regardless of license, we quickly come to the conclusion that all that really matters is the size of the community. It's a fair assumption that for a given project there is a relatively stable percentage of users who will choose to contribute back (the percentage itself varies per project, but is fairly stable per project in my experience), therefore the easiest way to increase your contributors is to just increase your user base. Forget about trying to coerce people into being 'good' members of the community, just trust that the percentage will be there and will track your overall numbers.

One way in which to attract more users is to make the licensing simpler and more easier to understand. Programmers hate legalese, and a simple, clear license is bound to be more attractive than our LGPL (with static link exclusion), plus OUL option. It's for this reason that from OGRE 1.7 we're switching to the MIT License.

I find this fascinating on a number of different levels. The argument he's making -- within the open source world -- pretty much mirrors the arguments we make to copyright maximalists: that focusing so much on "freeloaders" is pointless, they're going to exist. Instead, focus on building your overall community, adding value, and setting up a model that works for those people. It's amazing to think that the excess restrictions in some open source licenses creates something of a parallel world, with parallel issues.

Once again, it all seems to come down to the same thing: restricting what others do is rarely a good strategy. Let people do what they want, and focus on providing the most value for the largest community that wants to be a part of what you're doing.

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If Your Business Model Requires An Overly Restrictive Contracts... You Have No Real Business Model

from the that's-not-satisfying-customers dept

We've discussed in the past how consumers are gaining more power over companies these days (and how that's a good thing), and that leads to a separate, but also interesting observation: if your business model relies on denying customers what they want -- such as through the use of overly restrictive contracts -- your business model is in trouble. Thomas O'Toole has a good discussion about some recent lawsuits involving overly restrictive contracts that try (and usually fail) to prevent customers from doing what they really want to do. First, it discusses the recent attempt by MediaFire to stop the distribution of a Firefox extension that routes around MediaFire's ad-driven business model. Second, it discusses a legal fight between Virgin Mobile and MetroPCS over whether or not MetroPCS can legally reprogram Virgin Mobile phones to work on its network.

The thing that shines through in both instances, however, is that they involved companies who didn't rely on providing the best product for consumers, enabling them to do what they wanted -- but instead, relied on contracts with overly restrictive terms designed to prevent customers from doing what they want. As far as I'm concerned, in most cases, business models like that won't be long for this world. Consumers are increasingly fed up with bogus legal restrictions that try to prevent what the technology clearly allows. If you're trying to create a business model, the second you consider putting in ideas that inherently limit your consumers from doing what they want, you're asking for trouble. A smart business model enables more customers to do what they want, and does so in a way that makes everyone better off. While there are still companies who can get away with anti-consumer business models enforced by overly restrict contracts, it's not a long term strategy for success.

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Gannett And AP Tell SEC They Won't Sign Up For Restricted Reporting

from the pushback dept

Well, we've already joked about how the Associated Press seems to have a bit of a double standard in complaining about the Southeastern Conference's (SEC) restrictions on journalistic activity during SEC sporting events, but it's nice to see the Associated Press and the Gannett chain of newspapers both take a stand and tell the SEC that it simply won't sign the agreement. It's not entirely clear what happens next. The SEC is likely to change the policies and try to come to some sort of compromise, but I'd love to see news organizations get a backbone and tell such sports leagues that there's no compromise and no deal to be had. They're reporters and they'll report as they see fit.

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The AP Not So Happy About Reporting Restrictions When It Goes In The Other Direction

from the good-for-us,-not-for-them dept

Well, this is amusing. Remember how the AP is trying to limit how others can report on or make use of AP news? Right. Hold that thought. Now remember how the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is trying to restrict how both the fans and reporters can report on games? Well, you know what's coming next. Stephen points out that the AP is now protesting the SEC's policies. Apparently, the AP is only a fan of such reporting restrictions when it impacts others rather than themselves. The full letter (pdf) sent to the SEC by the AP and some other reporting groups takes issue with many of the restrictions, and apparently doesn't notice the irony in the fact that the AP is trying to restrict others in much the same way.

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Newspaper Stands Up For Its Right To Report Sporting Events Without Restrictions

from the good-going dept

Last year, we were dismayed that newspapers seemed to be willing to agree to certain rules placed on how they could report on sporting events, as per the National Football League and Major League Baseball. In both cases, these involved significant restrictions on what and how they could report. At the time, we suggested that newspapers stop accepting the restrictions, even if it meant they were no longer granted a press pass -- but every newspaper we know of gave in. Covering baseball and football was just too important -- even though these newspapers could easily still report on games without the benefit of a press pass. You don't need a press pass to report on an event.

That said, while it's on a much smaller scale, it's nice to see the Redding Record Searchlight stop covering the local rodeo over this same issue (found via Romenesko). The rodeo decided that it would only give press passes to those who were "willing to work with us," which meant covering things in a way that was favorable to the rodeo. Good for the Redding Record Searchlight. Hopefully some other newspapers will get up enough courage to tell other (bigger) sports what they can do with their restrictions as well.

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Why Should Newspapers Agree To MLB's Rules On How They Can Report On Baseball Online?

from the no-need-to-compromise dept

Back in February, we noted that Major League Baseball (MLB) was following the NFL down the extremely slippery slope of putting in place restrictions concerning how reporters could report on baseball online. This included things like only very short video clips could be posted online, no more than 7 photos, and all non-text content had to be removed in 72-hours. If that all sounds like preventing reporters from doing their job, you'd be correct. As I suggested at the time, the answer should be for newspapers to simply ignore the rules and if MLB pulls their press passes to buy their reporters tickets to the games (rather than using press passes) or see how the teams feel without press coverage. While it appears that newspapers certainly were upset about these restrictions, rather than doing anything serious about it, they've apparently negotiated a "compromise." The compromise allows newspapers to now host more video and audio content than the original restrictions, but everything still needs to be removed within 72-hours unless there's a special exemption.

This is, of course, absolutely ridiculous. While it's perfectly legal (reporters don't need to get press passes, so the team can restrict them), it sets a tremendously bad precedent that journalists are allowing any outside control over how they can report on a game. This is all stemming from MLB's incorrect belief that it "owns" everything having to do with Major League Baseball -- and then wanting to artificially limit it so it can sell it to fans. Note that we're not just talking about actual game data here -- but interviews with the players that are conducted by the journalists. There's simply no legitimate reason why newspapers should allow MLB to dictate what it can do with that content or how it can report on it. All that this will do is serve to limit the kind of innovative reporting and community building that the MLB should be encouraging. It's a top down approach by an organization who thinks that only it can decide how people get access to news and info about the game. But it's going to stop newspapers from putting in place their own, perhaps more useful, services for fans, and that will only serve to limit the fanbase. It's upsetting that MLB would even try to do this and it's a travesty that newspapers acquiesced, even to the supposed "compromise" solution. It's opening the door to the MLB telling them what they can report on and any newspaper person should know better.

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Olympic Bloggers Learn The Rules; First Rule: No Blogging Anything Interesting

from the the-gold-medal-for-idiocy dept

The International Olympic Committee is known for their ridiculously overreaching attempts to claim intellectual property rights over all aspect of the games -- including various efforts to have laws changed just to give the Olympics special trademark and copyright protection that would bar things that would normally be considered fair use. At the 2004 Olympics, we noted how ridiculous it was that the IOC even banned athletes from blogging anything about the event, afraid that it would upset the media companies who paid their millions of dollars for "exclusive" rights. About a year ago, they promised that for the 2008 Olympics they would allow some blogging, but the rules had yet to be set. Now, the IOC has come out with the official blogging rules for athletes participating in the Beijing Olympics, and they seem particularly burdensome.

Bloggers will not be able to post any audio or video (remember, that might upset the media partners). They can post still photos but only if they were taken outside of "accredited" areas or inside those areas if no sporting events can actually be seen in the photos. In other words: please make your blog posts as boring as possible and make sure they don't include any of the stuff that people might be interested in. Then there's a bit of a contradiction, as the rules state that blog posts should "adhere to the Olympic spirit," but that "there should be no commercial reference or advertising." That's funny. I thought commercial references and advertising were the Olympic spirit.

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