Let's Get Small!

That sounds about right. I think they're relying on the press box rules for enforcement right now, and could turn the screws to folks in the stands if they really wanted to try. So for example, you or I could live-blog a game we were watching on tv without punishment, and they probably would chase you down if you were doing it from the cheaps seats via a souped-up cell phone or whatever.

It'll be interesting to see what they try to do as technology gets better. I noticed the time I went to a live show, there were lots of prominent signs about no cell phones, cameras etc, but there were dozens and dozens of folks in the stands freely ignoring this, as you could see the little blue screen everywhere.My guess is folks were sending "wish you were here" photos to remote amigos everywhere.As better tech gets cheaper, people will start sending their own live broadcasts of games, broadcasts, etc. And there'll be a clampdown attempted. But it'll be hard to enforce.

It's not at all hard to imagine folks with little earclip phones and tiny cameras and unlimted service watching the games and reporting to their friends for most of the game...my guess is that such practices would be sternly frowned upon, and fans might start to get kicked out for this. They might even pass explicit rules to create clear authority to do this if current law is gray.

The NCAA's own regs on the sale of media rights, emphasis and footnoting mine:

31.6.4.1 Awarding Media Rights.
Television, radio and film rights shall be awarded in such a manner as to advance most fully the following interests:

(a) Gate attendance;

Live-blogging is hardly going to reduce gate attendance. Fans who can be there, WILL be there.

(b) Promotion of interest in the sport;

As soon as I find the purported NCAA-approved live-blogging on ESPN or wherever, we'll know if it's as deathly dull as possible. Even the live-blogging of local fans is somewhat dull. Neither is likely to "promote interest," but to feed it.

(c) Promotion of intercollegiate athletics as a part of collegiate education; and

LMAO. Which better promotes intercollegiate athletics as a part of collegiate education? [a] local coverage by local sportswriters interested in the team, or [b] the gutless and near content-less almost-buried hidden capsule summaries released on the web site of a major cable sports network that treats collegiate sports as an afterthought, and otherwise focuses exclusively on the highly-profitable field of professional atheletics?

(d) Promotion of the Association and its purposes and fundamental policy.

Playing the Knot-Z-Double-A with local media live-blogging seems to be going in the opposite direction here, unless promoting yourself as an anti-local-team bully is the "promotion" you're aiming for!

The applicable NCAA regulations regarding internet media can be found here, if the link holds up. As they note, "...the rights cover all Internet representation of the NCAA championship events including live stats, live audio, live video, post-event footage use and online sales.

In other words, the "advancing of interests" evidenced is what we genteel folks refer to as steer manure. It has just about zip to do with [a] through [c] above, and everything to do with the first part of [d]. It's all about the money--and the monopoly.

Live blogging isn't itself live per se. You see it, you blog it, there's a delay. Minimal but real. Your reports are a post-happening abstraction of the event, not a real-time broadcast of it.

Once it happens and gets reported to you on the TV or whatever, I think the events are just simply facts that no one owns anymore.

But if you were to use a camera to relay a cable broadcast to a web site sao that other folks could watch it without paying for cable, that'd be infringement, because the licensed transmitter owns the braodcast images.

I really think in this case (the NCCA's no blog rule) that the operating principle is "our press box, our rules."