When governmental intervention and involvement potentially impacts the NFL in a negative way, some will say of the politicians and bureaucrats, “Don’t they have anything better to do?” When the NFL hopes to harness the power of the government to achieve the league’s objectives, that question is never asked.
According to Andrew Cohen of FrontOfficeSports.com, the NFL, NBA, and UFC are trying to get the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to take more aggressive and effective action against illegal streaming. The goal is to update the Digital Millennium Copyright Act so that online service providers can take down illegal streams more quickly.
“Unfortunately, UFC, NBAP and NFLP’s shared experience is that many OSPs frequently take hours or even days to remove content in response to takedown notices — thus allowing infringing live content to remain online during the most anticipated moments, or even the entirety, of a UFC event or an NBA or NFL game,” the joint letter explains.
Currently, the DMCA requires illegal stream to be removed “expeditiously.” The NFL, NBA, and UFC want the language to be changed to “instantaneously or near-instantaneously.”
During a Wednesday media conference call, NFL Chief Media and Business Officer Brian Rolapp acknowledged that “piracy has always been there . . . around the edges.” The letter asserts, however, that the global sports industry is losing up to $28 billion in potential revenue per year.
Rolapp seemed to downplay the recent effort to take more aggressive action against illegal streams, explaining that the league is far more focused on making legitimate access more readily available.
Regardless, the letter sent by the NFL, NBA, and UFC makes it clear that the league wants to have a more effective way to slam the door immediately on illegal streams. And that it wants the goverment to handle it.
