Legality of Recording Live Streams?

[innoying]

I was just wondering from a legal and a FIRST policy standpoint what the deal is with recording the livestreams and re-uploading them to youtube, etc. Obviously it's common practice if you look on the thebluealliance but I'd like to know what the official stance is on it. I've been recoding all 4 live-streams today and plan on continuing it to do so, but want to make sure it's okay to upload them before I do so.

[bduddy]

Technically, all of the broadcasts that originated from FIRST are automatically copyrighted by FIRST, and it has the right to demand you not publicly upload it. In practice, I think that FIRST's silence on the issue speaks volumes.

[innoying]

What about the videos being taken down because they have copy-written music in the background? Is the best option to just upload somewhere other than youtube that isn't going to be taken down automatically?

[Robby Unruh]

Our team has mulled over the idea of livestreaming the NASA streams on Ustream or something for mobile users but are faced the same question. I'm very interested if FIRST has any kind of policy about this.

edit: OP is talking about uploading to YouTube. AFAIK, uploading matches is perfectly fine (we've done it in the past), though I don't know what you'd do if it was taken down because of the audio.

[Patrick Flynn]

Originally Posted by innoying

What about the videos being taken down because they have copy-written music in the background? Is the best option to just upload somewhere other than youtube that isn't going to be taken down automatically?

Are you sure they were taken down? In most cases Youtube will still allow them, they will just play adds during the video to offset the royalty cost. This is what has happened whenever I've uploaded in the past

[orangemoore]

I would assume that FIRST is going to post all of the footage from champs on youtube like they did last year.

[efoote868]

In sporting events, whoever is filming will originally own the copyright. Unless they agree by contract to sign it over to FIRST (or whoever is organizing the event) in exchange for paying them to be there to film and broadcast it.

In the US, if you were to film a FIRST event, you own the copyright to your material. Same with any sporting event.
http://www.lexology.com/library/deta...1-957947b64a31

As far as the streaming goes, NASA generally doesn't exercise its rights on copyright material.
See:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html

[Michael Hill]

I'm not "up" on copyright law, but I thought since NASA is a federal government organization, they legally can't copyright it. However, I believe that would only apply if NASA is filming. If FIRST hires an outside contractor to film and uses NASA only to stream, I believe FIRST can still own the copyright to the material.

[DELurker]

I'm not a lawyer and I don't have ambulance-chasing ads on TV ...

With that said, in the content of FRC matches and events, the person/group recording the video (ie - artistic creation) has the copyright. The video should be able to be uploaded by its creator to YouTube regardless of the audio content. The DJ should have paid all fees associated with the performance of the music and the burden of royalties should not be on the video-maker, in part because the audio is a byproduct of the video.

As for re-posting streams, that's a slightly stickier issue, since the re-poster usually isn't the video creator. As long as the person/group creating the stream does not object, then there should be no issue. The only point at which FIRST can intervene is if they can show that they are the stream creator and they object to the re-posting.

For instance, the Bridgewater-Raritan District Event was hosted and streamed by team 303. Team 303 owns the copyright on all of the streaming video, but the audience members in actual attendance own the copyright over any videos they created. The musical performers own the copyright on their music, but they have been paid a royalty for the performance at the venue.

[efoote868]

If you were to post recorded streams on YouTube, you could argue that due to the nature of the robotics competition it could be considered fair use - educational or research purposes.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by innoying

copy-written

It's copyright, not copywrite.

So the word you are looking for is copyrighted.