The industry's views on boxing videos and stream ?
Posted: 29 Mar 2009, 13:48
ALL boxing sites have embedded videos and clips from fights, either classic fights from the 70's or shows from last weekend.
The portal player and content are provided by other website(s) - not the boxing site itself, they dont actually have the content on their servers whatsoever.
People nowadays say that you can get done by 'inducing' someone to view copywrited material. (In the U.S. anyway...)
But that's rubbish if you ask any legal eagle.
Because you could type 'Carl Froch video' into Google and it will provide many links, then you click on a site and it may have a youtube video = so who is inducing? google, the boxing site or youtube ? you could say the site provides only one single link wheras Google is providing HUNDREDS, yet youtube has the actual material !
It's like typing Captain America into google image search - you'll get hundreds of images of him, but he is a copyrighted image owned by Marvel comics. Are google breaking the law ?
Laws are different in many different countries. Some countries dont recognise boundary's or copyright material online. So if your site IS hosting videos and is located in that country, then technically you free to do whatever you want.
The United Kingdom has not enacted censorship legislation specific to the Internet and appears to have no intention of so doing.
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens3.html#uk
So all that happens in the uk are threatening letters are sent by TV companies, that get deleted by the recipient knowing that f*ck all can be done by them.
With regards the sport of boxing, if these clowns who currently put together the shows got their act together and allowed boxing fans in other countries view the fights, say on their PC for a small fee, then pirate material or illegal streams would not be as popular. People dont want to break the law, but they think 'sod it' if there is no other way of watching the fight than online and I dont blame them.
And boxing promoter's who whine and moan about boxing videos being online, are putting on an act. Most fighter's today are only popular in other countries due to their video clips spreading virally online. James Kirkland for example has never been on a British TV screen yet thousands of Brit boxing fans have seen his videos online and are now a fan - is Kirkland's promoter pissed about this? sure he aint !
Also a lot of promoter's get their fighter's a DVD of their opponents fights... so they can study their style. Now unless it's Amir Khan and you've gone and bought their off-the-shelf DVD, most of these tapes / dvd's come from download sites because 99% of fighters dont have an offical DVD available. So would a promoter be angry that their fights are online and get them pulled? if they one one hand get pirate DVDs for their fighters, yet have their online videos pulled from youtube, then they are hypocrites.
I suppose if it was PPV and the fight was still being charged for on TV, then quite rightly as revenue is being lost / stolen. But if the fight is over and the result is know to the world - under the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and the press, then is it really a big issue ?
Some promoters are always snotty about their fights online, yet others like the fact that other's can see the result / action in other countries that had no other means of watching it.
I think it was refreshing that Hatton.tv showed the Matthew Hatton vs Ted Bami fight for free last night. It gets their fighters shown to thousands of viewers and increases their profile. Plus longterm you'd attract sponsors.
RTE showing the Dunne fight was also an excellent idea.
Thoughts ?
Is the internet keeping boxing alive? or leeching from it ?
Personally if these uploaders didnt do their thing, i'd be stuck with sky, setanta and ITV forever and they miss a lot of the fights.
The portal player and content are provided by other website(s) - not the boxing site itself, they dont actually have the content on their servers whatsoever.
People nowadays say that you can get done by 'inducing' someone to view copywrited material. (In the U.S. anyway...)
But that's rubbish if you ask any legal eagle.
Because you could type 'Carl Froch video' into Google and it will provide many links, then you click on a site and it may have a youtube video = so who is inducing? google, the boxing site or youtube ? you could say the site provides only one single link wheras Google is providing HUNDREDS, yet youtube has the actual material !
It's like typing Captain America into google image search - you'll get hundreds of images of him, but he is a copyrighted image owned by Marvel comics. Are google breaking the law ?
Laws are different in many different countries. Some countries dont recognise boundary's or copyright material online. So if your site IS hosting videos and is located in that country, then technically you free to do whatever you want.
The United Kingdom has not enacted censorship legislation specific to the Internet and appears to have no intention of so doing.
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens3.html#uk
So all that happens in the uk are threatening letters are sent by TV companies, that get deleted by the recipient knowing that f*ck all can be done by them.
With regards the sport of boxing, if these clowns who currently put together the shows got their act together and allowed boxing fans in other countries view the fights, say on their PC for a small fee, then pirate material or illegal streams would not be as popular. People dont want to break the law, but they think 'sod it' if there is no other way of watching the fight than online and I dont blame them.
And boxing promoter's who whine and moan about boxing videos being online, are putting on an act. Most fighter's today are only popular in other countries due to their video clips spreading virally online. James Kirkland for example has never been on a British TV screen yet thousands of Brit boxing fans have seen his videos online and are now a fan - is Kirkland's promoter pissed about this? sure he aint !
Also a lot of promoter's get their fighter's a DVD of their opponents fights... so they can study their style. Now unless it's Amir Khan and you've gone and bought their off-the-shelf DVD, most of these tapes / dvd's come from download sites because 99% of fighters dont have an offical DVD available. So would a promoter be angry that their fights are online and get them pulled? if they one one hand get pirate DVDs for their fighters, yet have their online videos pulled from youtube, then they are hypocrites.
I suppose if it was PPV and the fight was still being charged for on TV, then quite rightly as revenue is being lost / stolen. But if the fight is over and the result is know to the world - under the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and the press, then is it really a big issue ?
Some promoters are always snotty about their fights online, yet others like the fact that other's can see the result / action in other countries that had no other means of watching it.
I think it was refreshing that Hatton.tv showed the Matthew Hatton vs Ted Bami fight for free last night. It gets their fighters shown to thousands of viewers and increases their profile. Plus longterm you'd attract sponsors.
RTE showing the Dunne fight was also an excellent idea.
Thoughts ?
Is the internet keeping boxing alive? or leeching from it ?
Personally if these uploaders didnt do their thing, i'd be stuck with sky, setanta and ITV forever and they miss a lot of the fights.