[mythtv-users] Boxee/Hulu?

Daniel Kristjansson danielk at cuymedia.net
Sun Feb 22 00:09:47 UTC 2009


On Sun, 2009-02-22 at 09:18 +1100, Bill Williamson wrote:

> Don't forget that ANYONE using mythtv to record a MLB baseball
> game is violating the implied license they state at the beginning
> of each and every baseball game.
> 
> You can try and state "yes, but that doesn't apply..." but then
> you're using the same argument the people watching hulu in
> unapproved frontends are doing...

Actually, that "MLB license" you are talking about is complete bunk.
There is also an argument to be made that each of the MLB officials
responsible for it can be sent to jail for it for up to five years since
false copyright claims are a serious felony in law. There simply hasn't
been an attorney general yet that's been willing to challenge them,
the US Supreme court has a long history of ignoring the law whenever
the executive branch has attempted to applied it to the business of
baseball. The supreme court held in 1922 that baseball is a whole local
enterprise which does not cross state lines so federal law such as
anti-trust, labor law, trademark and copyright  simply do not apply to
them since baseball teams don't attempt to sell their wares or restrict
others from selling their wares outside of their team's state. The
Supremes upheld this in 1953 and 1973, and even said that congress would
need to pass a special law saying that federal laws applied to baseball
businesses.

As someone who has had to suffer through Philadelphia Phillies and New
York Yankee telecasts overrunning into the programming I wanted to
watch when sitting pretty in the State of New Jersey I strongly believe
the Supreme Court is in error about the wholly intrastate nature of
baseball. I believe I've even witnessed teams from different states play
each other in some of these telecasts, which I believe would be a gross
violation of the teams' special exemption from federal law! They should
either be totally eliminated with the assets of those involved in the
criminal enterprise seized (my preferred option), or forced to follow
the law like the soccer federations in the rest of the world do so very
profitably.

Of course, you are free to ignore any copyright, trademark and other
federal law as it applies to baseball, because of the special exemption
from the numerous federal laws that allows them to exist also logically
exempts them from the protection of federal law. ;]  Every case
I've followed where baseball has attempted to enforce that silly
'MLB license' in court they have been roundly and totally defeated
before the issue of the baseball exemption was even raised, but in
law past results do not perfectly predict future results.

FYI IANAL and it would be totally foolish to rely on me for legal
advise, but you should probably talk to one if you think that
a notice of made up rights in broadcast is the same as terms of
service where you of a website where you are a member, or that
those are the same as terms of service you can't even find without
using the website first. Notices and hidden terms of use can only
give you additional rights, while ToS you need to agree to before
using some portion of a web site are a limited form of contract.

BTW I'm wholly perplexed by interest in Hulu. YouTube user videos
are fun, and Netflix streaming might actually have feature length
programming I would want to watch. But Hulu is just the same boring
stuff I can have MythTV record from the antenna on the roof, except
with advertising added. Do people really want the ads so much that
they will jump through all these hoops to get them added?

-- Daniel



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