We’ll Show you the English Premier League Fixtures but it will cost you Money
By: Bob | June 14th, 2007
By now you have probably seen the 2007/2008 English Premier League fixtures. If you haven’t, just do a little searching around on the interwebs and you’ll see plenty of sites and blogs that have all of the games listed. After all, these are the dead days of summer for Premiership fans and most of us are just excited to see news other than the endless transfer rumors. The vast majority of these blogs and sites posting the fixtures are evidently breaking the law.
If you look at the fixtures list on the BBC or Soccernet, you’ll see this disclaimer at the very bottom:
Reproduced under licence from Football DataCo Limited. All rights reserved. Licence no. NEWMEDIA/BBCCEEWEB/127116A.
Copyright © and Database Right The FA Premier League/The Scottish Premier League/The Football League/The Scottish Football League Limited 2007. All rights reserved. No part of the Fixtures Lists may be reproduced stored or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of Football DataCo Limited.
I’m not a legal scholar nor do I play one on television, but one could interpret this language to mean that it is illegal for me to publish even a snippet of, say, Liverpool’s schedule even though you can find this information on the official Premiership site and other locations.
Sat Aug 11 Aston Villa (away)
Wed Aug 15 West Ham United (home) – 8pm
Sat Aug 18 Chelsea (home)
Sat Aug 25 Sunderland (away)
Sat Sep 1 Derby County (home)
If I don’t finish this post it is because I am being taken away for just breaking the law.
So who is this Football DataCo Limited and how in the world can they possibly own the right to determine where the Premiership fixtures can and cannot appear? Wikipedia has an entry about the company which charges £266 for publications to print the fixtures of one English club.
Talk about extortion!
The worst part of all this is reading how the company has gone after small fanzines in the past. The English Premier League and the lower level leagues will survive if small publications and Web sits publish the fixtures. But will they survive if they drive away fans in the name of greed?
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Tags: DataCo Limited, English Premier League, English Premier League Fixtures, World Football, World SoccerSubscribe
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Comments
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This p!sses me off every year. I suspect, though, that this state of affairs can’t last much longer. The idea that one can copyright a set of dates is insane. And if the lower clubs are existing mostly off of this money (something I suspect is exaggerated) then they are not being run correctly. But surely this will not hold up to further EU scrutiny when it’s finally challenged.
And shouldn’t we all have a right to know whom Sunderland will be hosting the day before my birthday on Sept. 15? (Hint: You didn’t hear this from me, but it rhymes with ’shredding’).
Posted from
United States
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Great slant Bob LOL
Posted from
United States -
Looking at that disclaimer again, it’s clearly an overreach (at least under US law). Bob can certainly excerpt part of the fixture list with impunity. Furthermore, I’d suggest that using the info in the whole list would not run afoul of US law. You can’t copyright a fact, generally speaking. Major League Baseball tried to claim a copyright in whether Barry Bonds went 2 for 3 last night, but that didn’t work our either.
I wonder how often ESPN pays for sports information? (Other than broadcast rights of course). They’re clearly doing it there.
Posted from
United States -
Where can I get that awesome-ass Palm program?
Posted from
United States
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