I hope to god not.  If so, I sould/would have been in jail quite a while ago.  I myself in the few short years that I have had a phone with video capability have shared countless numbers of videos I shot at various professional sporting events.  To any normal American  here in the States, we rightly assume that since we were allowed to take our phones in to the venue, and take short clips of the events, we can do pretty much whatever we want with said clips because we own them.  Apparently they roll a little differently in the UK.  Does a sporting arena/leagure have the right to allow you to capture content and then claim copyright ownership?

Rory Cellan-Jones had a video of his removed by YouTube of a football (soccer) event that he had attended and taken a short clip of.  When I say short, I mean short – 37 seconds.  It’s not like he was live broadcasting the game from his mobile, merely a clip for the friends and family to see later.  However, as just mentioned, YouTube removed his video for possible copyright violation.  What?!  Apparently what you capture on your own phone isn’t yours.  Now I don’t know much of anything about UK copyright laws and UK laws in general, but I do know that they have some pretty restrictive and controversial laws in effect in the name of “public safety”.

Rory being the good natured person that he is removed the video as a long drawn out legal battle wasn’t worth it.  Is this a signal of more things to come?  Of more restrictive and overly evasive policies.  Does a sporting arena really believe that they are going to lose millions because someone uploaded a 37 second clip on YouTube?  ”Public Safety” is a cop out and excuse for “we want more money”, plain and simple.  Will it really come to a point where everything we “buy” is really “rented”.  Will it come to a point where we don’t own the rights to anything – giving up those rights to big corporations?  What are you thoughts?  Afraid?

Source: Tech Dirt