Louisville Courier-Journal v. NCAA

My blog gets between 1,500-2,000 hits on boring days, spikes to about 4,000 on non-game days but days that are, say, off days in between game days, then has climbed as high as 7,000 on game days.

 

With an ass as cut and as cute as you say yours is, I wouldn't be surprised. In fact, I want to subscribe.
Now back to the thread, I think that this whole situation has gotten a bit out of hand. Now, it's becoming a stare down.

 

Sort of like the way art imitates life, eh?

 

That's it? Buh.. buh... buh.. you're an effin stud!! ;D

 

When I was in college, I worked part-time as an IT guy for a paper that covered a major SEC West team. The paper wanted its writers in the box to blog. They began the year after I was laid off, but I know from working on the early setup that the school informed us that our writers could blog about anything as long as it wasn't game play. If they did, they were "live broadcasting" and that the paper didn't have a license, contract, etc. I got bitter about the layoff and didn't keep up with the site, so I'm not sure what they ever did with it.

 

It will be interesting to see how courts define "live broadcast." I think eventually that will be the crux of the argument.

 

True story: I was reading Brian Bennett's blog, raptly, up until the time he was ejected. I'd gone to a birthday party at my brother-in-law's, and since he's a tightwad he doesn't have ESPN on his prehistoric cable package. So I was dialing up BB's blog on my BlackBerry and reporting the news to other folks while feigning interest in the birthday party and e-mailing Brian at the same time. (He's a good friend and a tremendous reporter.) Somewhere along the line he said, "I might get ejected from the press box," and shortly thereafter he was gone.

Bottom line: this is a major issue for all of us. I know the CJ will fight it vigorously, because Bennie Ivory isn't going to stand for this and the paper's got a great lawyer in Jon Fleischaker. And the selective enforcement of this is ludicrous -- Chuck Klosterman wrote a live blog for us at ESPN.com from the Final Four without repercussion, and that, obviously, was CBS' event. I can also say that I don't believe ESPN had anything to do with BB being bum-rushed. But my hope is that all of print and cyberjournalism will get behind this fight.

 

Well said, Pat.

So, who else is joining me in covering the CWS starting this weekend?

Of those, who normally blogs?

Of those, who will blog this weekend?

Curious what some other guys' thoughts are as far as how to approach this. PM me if you're going to be doing it.

 

I hope so too. Now explain what you think can be done as a viable protest for print and cyber reporters.... letter of complaint has no teeth... what is doable in the long and short term?

 

I do understand that the NCAA wouldn't want someone simply posting play-by-play and score updates. I cover baseball and I do believe MLB issues the rights to "gamecasting" to only certain outlets.

They NCAA needs to make their rules much more clear, though, because 99 percent of what goes in a blog is something other than simply gamecasting. They have no business prohibiting the other 99 percent.

Anyway, I hope the CJ fights this all the way.

 

No kidding. I have friends who live and die by ESPN's word and some of the stuff on ESPN.com. While ESPN.com has some good writers - including one who contributed to this thread, its very seldom that a writer from a national media source can provide the latest and most accuarte news and rumors and rumblings on a team than Joe Blow Beat Writer from The Hometown Press. Yet, because it was on the WWL - it must be true.

 

Here's the irony of the entire thing: ESPN might end up coming out in support of Brian in all of this. Part of why the NCAA did this, they will say, is to protect ESPN's broadcast. Yet ESPN live blogs things all the time, e.g. Bill Simmons on the NBA Finals AND Sopranos Sunday night. Think they want their ability to do this taken away?