Strictly speaking, this is off topic. But I feel it is related.
Over the past year, we have heard a lot of talk about how the new copyright laws that the EU was trying to bring in would affect people making memes (I hate that word!) and uploading videos of themselves performing covers of songs. And the whole time I have been wondering how it would affect videos of figure skating routines.
The law got passed in September.
I am starting to wonder if we are already seeing the effects.
Like, we are seeing videos on the ISU's own Junior GP channel getting blocked. That never happened before this season, presumably because the ISU have one of these wide-ranging licenses. Could it be that these new copyright laws in Europe are over-riding the existing licence?
I can only see these copyright claims happening more often. And if they do, it is going to destroy the sport.
It is going to get to the stage where videos of performances are not going to be able to be uploaded to the internet. So, there is going to be less exposure for the sport, especially in countries that do not show it on the TV.
But, it could also lead to venues not wanting to hold competitions for fear of litigation. And if that happened, then the sport would really be in trouble!
CaroLiza_fan
Thankyou for posting this. Was completely unaware of it.
Can't comment on JGP videos, or venues not wanting to hold competitions.
However to cover this, what I'd like to see is the ISU expand its Skating ISU Youtube channel so that you've got videos (with any appropriate fees paid) of all figure skating competitions under their control available (and with an appropriate waiting time in countries where there are TV rights holders - don't know how this works for things that seem to be in perpetuity e.g. Eurosport shows highlights of world championships as warm ups for the coming season - anyone explain how this works?).
But yes, an ISU JGP channel (already exists), CS Events, GPs etc. Wouldn't have thought it beyond the wit and wisdom of man to even get videos of GPs up early in those countries where there are no TV rights. For example there's the Eurovision Sports TV channel which they livestream their events through to presumably those countries without TV rights. I would have thought they could be uploaded straightaway, Geoblocked accordingly, and then the latter drops off as rights expire, notwithstanding the perpetuity thing.
By doing this you would then have a library in place for future generations and all in one place, and hopefully all copyright issues are sorted, or least the ISU can tackle them as a whole.