CCIA Filing Ruffles Peacock's Feathers
The suits at NBC-Universal, one of several content creators named in an FTC complaint filed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, were fit to be tied Wednesday afternoon.
CCIA, which represents tech firms like Google and Microsoft, alleged that NBC, DreamWorks, the Major League Baseball and the National Football League have misrepresented their intellectual property rights through warnings that precede a sports game, movie or book. Read more in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
"There is nothing unlawful, untruthful, or inaccurate about the warning labels on our movies, which adhere to long accepted legal standards and are nearly identical to the warnings used by some of CCIA's own members," NBC said in a statement.
Content creators are "working overtime to develop new digital distribution models to reach our audience" and CCIA "could be a serious and constructive participant" in reducing piracy, the media giant stated. Instead, the trade group has acted irresponsibly "by filing a frivolous complaint for the sake of little more than publicity." Zing!
Update: The NFL responded late in the day, saying that the Copyright Act grants the league, "as the exclusive owner of its game telecasts, a number of valuable rights." The notice has been used for many years and is well understood by viewers to ban uses that would violate the law as opposed to private or non-commercial uses, a spokesman said.
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