Published by John Burleigh April 22nd, 2008
in Newsgathering and Contract.
In an article on disputes between professional sports leagues and the media over sports blogging, The New York Times reports today that, notwithstanding the APSE’s agreement with MLB, other organizations and publications, like Hearst, Gannett, Sports Illustrated and, apparently, The New York Times itself, have continued to protest the MLB’s new rules for credentials. The article did not say whether further negotiations were in store or whether there was any possibility that any reporters or bloggers might be excluded from ballparks as a result of the continuing dispute.
See “Tension Over Sports Blogging,” by Tim Arango.
For some media representatives, the issue of conditions on credentials has First Amendment and antitrust ramifications. According to the Times’ report, Sandra Baron, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center, said: “My view is that this is news gathering, and I look for legal responses to any effort to clamp down on news gathering. What I see is a strident effort by a powerful monopoly to control information. They have a monopoly on the game. Now they want to have a monopoly on the information.”
For its part, MLB argues that too much video and audio on a nonaffiliated website could infringe the rights of broadcasters who have paid millions to carry live games, as well as attract traffic away from the lucrative websites run by MLB and its teams. And MLB also disputes the notion that it is poaching on the media’s turf, and not the other way around. As MLB views it, 10 years ago, newspapers and magazines had no more of a stake in the Internet or the world of video and audio than MLB.
Published by John Burleigh April 15th, 2008
in Contract.
As each year’s baseball season approaches, around the same time that Spring Training is getting underway, Major League Baseball issues its requirements for media credentials. These are the terms to which reporters, photographers and bloggers must agree to gain access to baseball parks and otherwise cover the games or use authorized content. Because the Internet has become a battleground between websites owned and operated by newspapers, stations, networks and other media that cover baseball and websites run by MLB and its franchises themselves, the negotiations over credentials between MLB and the Associated Press Sports Editors, the National Press Photographers Association, and various newspapers and magazines and other media agencies have become increasingly contentious and protracted.
This season, MLB opened the bidding by issuing guidelines banning all online galleries of baseball game photos, placing stricter limits on the number of photos that could be published from a game, the running time of online audio and video reports and the length of time certain online content could be archived. After six weeks of negotiations between MLB and APSE, which took the laboring oar on behalf of media generally, on April 9, 2008, APSE’s John Cherwa of the Orlando Sentinel reported that a deal had been reached with MLB, subject to the agreement of APSE’s membership. See this link. For a copy of the latest MLB terms and conditions, click here.
The principal issue for most sports editors had apparently been the restriction on photo galleries. MLB has now agreed to place no restrictions on photo galleries except that there be a “reasonable number of photos,” a requirement that was apparently taken from the National Football League’s credentials. There remain tighter limits on online audio and video (120 seconds) and archival use (72 hours). According to Cherwa, these limits are still unacceptable to APSE and will probably be the subject of future negotiations.
MLB is not the only sports organization to use its credentials requirements as leverage for giving its own Internet properties an advantage over the websites of media competitors. Even the Illinois High School Association attempted to restrict, albeit unsuccessfully, the “secondary use” of photographs taken at Illinois high school basketball and football games and tournaments. See the following links for more information: link 1 | link 2.
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