RE: NFL Nixes

["Hakim Madjid" <HMadjid@mindspring.com>]

Garret Wollman wrote:
>I think you'll find, as others have mentioned, that it's not the
>station's programming, it's the team's or the league's.  If you watched
>the credits on the TV broadcasts (for which, mind you, CBS and Fox
>paid $billions), you'd have seen that the copyright belongs to the
>NFL.

I have done some research on this issue of the NFL not allowing
re-broadcasts.

First of all, it was the 1976 revision to US copyright law that clarified
and codified that organizations such as the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB and others
could indeed assert copyright over game radio/TV broadcasts.

That being said, however, as near as I've been able to find out, the
no-rebroadcast policy was put in place in the mid 1960s by the then Pro
Football commissioner Pete Rozelle. Curiously enough, Rozelle's
no-rebroadcast edict was handed down about the same time the NFL signed
their first contract with the company that was to become NFL
films..hmmmmmmmmmmm....

73, de Hakim (N1ZFF)