The National Football League’s legal threats against churches that planned on having its members view last weekend’s Super Bowl on large screen television sets has raised the ire of a diverse spectrum of critics.

The NFL had warned that if any church allowed a public viewing of the Super Bowl on a TV larger than 55” that it would consider legal action to protect its copyright interests. Churches across the nation responded by cancelling viewing of the sports event, many of them having offered it in the past as an evangelistic outreach to un-churched members of the community.

One of the major concerns of the NFL was the diluting effect that such gatherings have on the computation of the all-important ratings system for football’s preeminent event, and the corresponding multi-million dollar rates that advertisers can be charged to place their ads during the game.

from NRB Newsletter

CMR Observation

It says a lot when a copyright law will exempt a Sports Bar, and leave a loophole big enough to serve litigation to a non-profit outreach gathering. Do a mental comparison between that scenario and the current Performance Rights Act now under consideration.

Tags: Broadcast, Broadcaster, Copyright, Issues, Legal, Legislation, NRB, Performance Rights, Radio, Television, TV