I'm no copyright expert, but I'm pretty sure that the FA have been
exercising copyright on their fixture lists for many years. The historical
reason, I believe, has been to get some revenue from the bookmakers, who
routinely use fixture lists on betting slips and in advertisements. The
FA's latest action, reported by John, seems churlish to say the least.
Jonathan
>An interesting claim, for those interested in copyright of
>course, is that made recently by the Football Association
>Premier League about it's ownership of the copyright of the
>Premier League fixture list!
>
>They have requested that (cough) ArseWeb, a non-commercial
>(?) web site for Arsenal fans remove a list of Arsenal's
>fixtures for the 2000-2001 season. The fixture list is
>an essential (and sometimes the only useful ;-) feature of
>many such sites. If they are correct they will surely be
>asking 100's of sites to do likewise. A logical extension
>would be to also ask Arsenal FC to remove the fixture list
>from their 'official' site
>
>Some of you might say "oh, who cares, as long as West Ham
>beat Man United last Sunday" (hi Derek ;-) but I'm making a
>serious enquiry.
>
>Would any of you copyright experts care to voice an opinion
>which I will pass on (leaving your name out of it of
>course)?
>
>The ArseWeb statement on this ban (which they are openly
>defying btw) is at the following URL:
>
>http://www.arseweb.com/cgi-bin/p?current/calendar.awf
>
>
>Cheers
>John
>
>
>
>John Henderson
>Systems Officer
>Information Services and Systems
>King's College London
>The Strand
>London WC2R 2LS
>
>Phone: +44 (0)20 7848 2137
>Mobile: 07966 409 801
>Fax: +44 (0)20 7848 1777
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>[log in to unmask]
_________________________________________________________________
Jonathan Furner, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Information Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
Mail: 224 GSE&IS Building, Box 951520, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1520
Email: [log in to unmask] Voice: 310/825-5210 Fax: 310/206-4460
Web: http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/jfurner/
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