Superbowling

An assortment of Super Bowl tidbits: Supposedly sports gambling sites are being threatened with denial of service attacks if they don't pay protection money - also a Reuters story. Infinitus writes "The NFL's legal firm has a PDF up that outlines the NFL's intellectual property rights to words like 'Super Bowl' and 'NFL'. Including a neat little chart that tells you what you can and can't say..." VeggiePossum23 writes "Panthers Upset Patriots, 29 to 21... at least in the Sony Sponsored '989 Sports Game Before the Game' played on NFL Gameday 2004 on the PS2 Console. This annual event, held Wednesday night in Houston, has a perfect 8-year track record of picking the winner of the Super Bowl. Carolina Panthers Wide Receiver Steve Smith controlled the Panthers, winning an upset victory against New England Patriots' Wide Out Troy Brown, also controlling his own team." lordbyron writes "CBS is doing a SuperBowl of commercials that will include a vote for the best commercial in history. You can watch the top 10 now and make sure that you vote at 9pm on Sunday 1/31. It includes some classics like the Apple commercial and the exploding mosquitos from Tabasco."Wing Bowl.--->

Radio Contests

[LordArathres]

Here in Los Angeles, KROQ is doing a "Super Bowl" contest where they send someone to the "Super Bowl" game, but they cannot call it the "Super Bowl" becuase of the NFL restriction. So they are referring to it as the "Big Game". It would cost them an insane amount of money to call it the "Super Bowl Contests" and its ridiculous. This whole trademark BS is so stupid sometimes. How can we live in a age where you cant refer to something by its official name without paying money??? I read slashdot all the time and I am so disgusted by the crap going on around us, what IS this world coming to?

Mario

Re:2 teams of 11

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

For those who don't know, American football is a sissy version of rugby (rugby players don't wear helmets and armored plates). European football, on the other hand, is played mostly with the feet, and sometime the head, but in most player's case, there isn't any difference, which is why it's called "foot"ball.

There are 2*11 players in a football game. It's called "team spirit" : 11 players, only one spirit, so they learn to share.

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[kermyt]

For the record, CBS's reason for not accepting that ad is because they don't accept any debatable political issue issue ads. They would have accepted ads from candidates because they have to, but none came forward with the money to do so.

If that was true then CBS certainly would not run the white house ad that connects marijuana users to terrorism. but that is exactly that they are doing.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

1024 of your closest friends

[bstadil]

Sure there is events that "predicts" superbowl with amazing accuracy. If you don't believe me just send a message to your 1024 closest friends and tell half that the A team will win and other B team.

Do this for 8 years and four of your friends thinks you are a genius and the remaining 1020 have forgotten the whole thing.

This works with stock tips and is a scam that has been used for ages.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[Heisenbug]

A few notes on this ... if you haven't seen the MoveOn Child's Pay ad, it's not exactly incendiary rhetoric. Even Bill O'Reilly said he was surprised they refused to play it.

CBS defends the policy by saying that if they allowed issue ads, large corporations could buy time to push their favorite issues and it would disenfranchise us folks with smaller ad budgets. Eli Pariser of MoveOn responded by pointing out that this creates an awfully friendly environment for the status quo, and those same corporations. We have oil company ads but no anti-oil ads, shoe company ads but no sweatshop ads, drug war ads but no decriminalization ads.

What we're really getting here is a one-sided agenda, and, yes, censorship, in the guise of fairness.

Copyright and Trademark Laws

[sabNetwork]

I'd love to see this stuff hold up in court. Has it before? I doubt it.

It is perfectly legal (and EXPLICITLY legal) to use trademarks in news and mention as long as they don't cause brand confusion.

Also, the use of copyrights to protect news is not legal. No one is allowed to rebroadcast the the coverage of the game verbatim, but nothing prevents someone from relaying the general events from the game. This is in the First Amendment, and there are no exceptions.

--

Re:Football IP?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Just because it has its own jargon doesn't make it intellectual. Car salesmen and McDonald's burger-flippers too have their own jargon you'd be hard-pressed to understand if you're not in the know.

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most pot (in these parts) is locally grown. The whole "pot==terrorism" line is tired and disingenuous. It's an excuse to keep the jail busy. Many jails now use private management which support the Republicans.

Don't forget CBS is helping MoveOn

[toupsie]

Actually having CBS not air the commercial has allowed more people to see the ad. MoveOn should be jumping for joy that CBS denied the ad buy. It has brought more attention to their message and allowed them to air the ad for free on various news shows. You are even helping out MoveOn by publicizing the ad here on Slashdot.

CBS is making a smart business decision not to air this ad. Why should CBS want to bring in unneeded controversy into the Super Bowl that would distract from the game? Since it has a product that is in high demand for advertisers, CBS can pick and choose which advertisers it wants to fill in those 30 second gaps between plays. Also, if you are spending $2 million an ad as advertiser would you want your commercial message to be drowned out by adjacent partisan political message? Heck no! This would make it hard for CBS to sell the ad space next to the MoveOn ad.

This isn't political censorship, its smart business on the part of CBS.

Re:Being English, I have to ask...

[levell]

Scottish people are British! (The word you were looking for was English - I think). Although I'm not quite sure why you think English people would be embarrased by excitement.

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[damiam]

A corporation not playing an ad because of its political viewpoints is censorship. It's their right, and it's perfectly legal (unless you want to get into some argument about the "public" airwaves), but it's still censorship. Besides nothing in that ad is at all controversial - the deficit estimate is even a bit low, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If they're gonna air ads from the White House (containing some very shaky statements about drugs and terrorism), they should air this ad (which doesn't even promote a candidate).

A consumer letter

[whovian]

Dear National Football League,

I am writing to you today to express my joy over a recent shopping experience at your online warehouse. It was indeed a Super Sunday because I found natural fleece coats (NFC) with angora-free cuffs (AFC) in my size. I also finally found the natural floor lighting (NFL) I have long wanted but couldn't find anywhere else.

Call us a bunch of Cowboys, but now my family and I can enjoy watching the Super Bowl while we're out in the forest waiting to shoot some Bucs and maybe some Bears.

Sincerely yours,
An NFL fan

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

NFL = No Fun League

[doormat]

First the NFL says NO [klas-tv.com] to ads for Las Vegas during the superbowl. Then CBS says NO [moveon.org] to ads against Bush during the game. The NFL says NO [klas-tv.com] WAY [klas-tv.com] to Casinos in las vegas showing the game on anything bigger than a 55" TV. They say its copyright law, but last I checked copyright law didnt say anything about TV Size. Its just the NFL's arbitrary size. The Palms [palms.com] was planning to show it on their huge movie theater screens. Oh well, I guess the NFL doesnt like its superbowl party being upstaged by Vegas. Now they're just taking their ball and going back to Houston. Paul Tagliabue caused lots of casinos to lose lots of money because of the NFL's childlike behavior. Hello, only so many people can go to the game! What are the rest supposed to do, wait outside and be happy they're near the game?? Paul also threatened the players with fines or possibly suspensions for "excessive celebration" during the Superbowl.

The NFL is definately the No Fun League.

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[Coryoth]

It is amazing how many people do not understand what censorship actually means.

Yes, apparently even you. I was under the impression that censoring [m-w.com] simply meant to screen and edit out any material found to be objectionable.

This ad, was, apparently, objectionable as far as CBS was concerned in terms of their goals: To keep and maintain as many viewers as possible to maximise their advertising revenue.

A book publisher not publishing a book that he finds objectionable is censorship too.

Of course, most people these days presume that censorship is only evil government dictates, but that is not at all true. If a parent decides they don't want their child to watch a TV program, they are censoring the child's TV watching habits. For some reason people seem to think censorship==evil, which is just not true (certainly not by the definition of the word). By all means, be wary of state mandated censorship, but don't go misusing a perfectly good word.

Jedidiah

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[dbc001]

The right decision would have been not to allow policital ads at all. By airing an ad from the whitehouse, which I paid for (and I would much prefer that the money be used for education instead of fucking superbowl ads), they have basically dumped politics into the superbowl. They should either remove all the politics (arguably the wise choice) or allow everyone to advertise. Again, I agree that the superbowl should be an all-fun event. Politics and fun don't mix well. But they have clearly chosen sides, and that has already taken some of the fun out of it.

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[LostCluster]

they should air this ad (which doesn't even promote a candidate).

Actually, if any of the democratic candidates were willing to pay for the ad from campaign funds (and as required, appear in the ad and indicate their approval) then CBS would be required to either accept the ad or reject all campaign ads for that election cycle. The lack of a candidate or ballot issue actually does this ad in...

Re:That's not all...

[EastCoastSurfer]

If you had politely said "I don't think you can control where I'm looking from a public parking lot." what could the cop actually do? Write you a ticket for "looking?"

No, you are "Wrong. Wrong wrong."

[stewby18]

It may be censorship in the exact definition of the word, but not in the big brother way you're all thinking of it.

Come again? It's not censorship except in the sense of fulfilling the definition of censorship? What makes you think that no-one but you understands the distinction between censorship and government censorship? Where do you get off saying that the parent poster is "Wrong. Wrong wrong." based solely on the fact that you don't think others are capable of understanding the words they use?

censoring: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable

Thus, this is censorship exactly as the parent said. It seems perfectly reasonable that many people find it distasteful that a large corporation is choosing to censor ads based on their own political views (rather than on the basis of public mores, which is a much more common way ads are censored).

The fact that they have the legal right to do it doesn't mean we can't object, nor does that fact that it is (in your opinion, at least) a good business model. Take a quick slashdot survey of the number of people who like Microsoft's business tactics... yet it's hard to argue that they do not form (in most cases) a good business model for Microsoft.

Re:Being English, I have to ask...

[karit]

A cricket test (the 5 day version of the sport) is one of the greatest sporting events there is. There are great amounts of stratergy etc involved. And with what other sports can you sit on a grassy embankment drinking beer wacthing the best sport in the world in the middle of summer?

Re:If you can call 1.3 Trillion

[damiam]

Your numbers are rather strange. According to the US Treasury [treas.gov], the debt has gone up 1.3 trillion in the three years since Bush took office. That's a bunch more than 100 billion a year (in fact, it's $433 billion). In his entire 8 years, Clinton raised it 2 trillion - $250 billion a year.

Obviously, Clinton wasn't a perfect president (such a thing has never existed). I disagree with him on plenty of issues (blowjobs, for one). But against a president to whom "getting things done" means giving away money to the wealthy, when we're already spending it faster than we're making it, I'd take Clinton any day.