Some People Don’t Get It
I’ll keep this short as I tend not to involve anything personal on this site. Friday morning I got up and do what I usually do by updating the site then checking my e-mail. When I checked my e-mail got this lovely e-mail.
Dear Sirs,
NetResult Internal Reference: DataCo_NRID 102763
We write on behalf of the Football Data Co Limited which is the appointed licensee of the FA Premier League, the Football League, the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League (“the Leagues”) in respect of the licensing of certain intellectual property rights of the Leagues, including Match Action Photographs and UK Club Crests for use by third parties.
We have noticed that your website http://www.sinnacle.com is displaying Match Action Photographs and Club Crests. In order to display these photographs you must obtain the necessary licence from Football DataCo. The crests can only be used with permission from each individual team. The crests need to be removed until permission is granted.
We wish to make you aware that we have a good faith belief that your present use is an infringement of the Leagues’ legal rights and that all such unauthorised use must cease immediately. Please confirm by return your agreement to this and give your undertaking to cease all such infringements on any and all of your web sites. Pending your response the Leagues’ rights are fully reserved.
Thank you for your cooperation.
So if you noticed previous posts missing pictures that is why as I’ve taken down previous pictures/logos hosted on my site. Now I get the fact that’s it their trademark so by the letter of the law I should remove the pictures which I have. What bugs me is how backwards people are. I’d understand if I was a commercial website making money off the backs of the EPL but I’m clearly not. Nothing I do on this site or the 1000’s of sites like these hurt the EPL/SPL bottom line.
I know that the EPL/SPL doesn’t need me too but I’m promoting them like the thousands of other small websites out there. Again they don’t need me too but I’m still providing them a service by doing my small part in keeping interest in British football. It just seems pitiful to bully the little guy by removing pictures.
Back to my point above, yes by the letter of the law it should be taken down which I have done. I’d be able to understand it more if the EPL/SPL had some sort of service where a blog owner would pay for the rights to use match pictures and team logo’s but one has to go around getting permission to use team logo’s for each club at a heavy cost I’m sure. If I was taking away from such a service I’d understand more taking down those pictures. It’s like youtube videos and how often clips are taken down. If the EPL had a video service like youtube which shown goals/highlights then again I’d understand the right to take those videos down but they don’t and people from all over the world need for run around finding clips that the FA should be bright enough to have such a service in one central location under their own roof.
In the end trying to turn a negative into a positive. You may notice the Michael Ballack picture upon this post which is linked from picapp.com that offers websites access to legal images. So good news to anyone who may of been tired of seeing the same old logos everyday during the EPL Gossip post, more action shots should be on their way as I’m still playing with the look and feel of picapp.com which has been a godsend.
July 26th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Grrrr – that’s just crap. Oh well, kudos to you for taking the high road. I for one will continue to bitch on your behalf