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Media & Entertainment Law

: Sports Law Blog

Should churches be able to ignore the NFL's I.P. rights?

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

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My emeritus colleague Howard Friedman has a post on his Religion Clause blog about Senator Specter's effort to exempt churches from federal copyright law in connection with rebroadcasting NFL games:

Bill Introduced In Congress To Permit Church Super Bowl Parties
As previously reported, the National Football League again this year told churches that the copyright law limited their ability to host Super Bowl parties in auditoriums larger than 2000 square feet if the bowl game was shown on TV screens larger than 55 inches. This creates problems for churches that wish to offer an alcohol-free family-friendly alternative for watching the game. So this week, Sen. Arlen Specter introduced S.2591, a bill to permit churches to display televised professional football contests free of copyright concerns, so long as no direct charge is made for viewing the game, no money is received by the church during the broadcast, and the game is not further retransmitted by the church. Yesterday's Christian Post reports that Rep. Heath Shuler plans to introduce a similar bill in the House of Representatives.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on February 08, 2008 (boomark / email).