NFL attacks TiVo

With football season upon us, the NFL is turning their attention to TiVo - and doing everything they can to prevent subscribers from "sharing" taped football games with anyone who doesn't pay for NFL Sunday Ticket.

TiVo recently sought to add new features that would make its recorded content more portable. They filed with the FCC for certification under the Digital Broadcast Content Protection Rule, and the NFL quickly responded by filing a comment arguing that certification will result in widespread, unauthorized redistribution of NFL games, and ultimately copyright infringement conduct.

The NFL offers "Sunday Ticket," a Direct TV package that gives viewers unlimited access to over 100 NFL games during the 2004-05 season for about $219. The main draw of Sunday Ticket is that many NFL games are blacked out in certain parts of the country, a result of the NFL's attempt to limit the market to which NFL games may be broadcast. The NFL is afraid that TiVo's "video sharing" capabilities will harm this market, decreasing the revenue brought in by the Sunday Ticket package, and that "a user could send a copy of a game to someone in another time zone, where the game is blacked out."

TiVoGuard is a device TiVo claims will help prevent the unauthorized redistribution of NFL games; however, the NFL feels that its lack of adequate proximity controls renders TiVoGuard completely ineffective in preventing this redistribution outside of limited environments.

The NFL owns the copyright to all regular and post season games, and feels that they have the right to decide when and how those telecasts are distributed. Their position on Sunday Ticket is that is aims to maximize TV audiences as well as League revenue - and TiVo poses a serious obstacle to achieving this goal.

Every NFL game is aired for free somewhere in the country. However, because as many as 14 games can be played in a 6 hour period on Sundays, telecasts are regionalized. Games that are not broadcast on CBS or FOX are available by subscription via NFL Sunday Ticket. Revenue from Sunday Ticket are shared with the network affiliates, allowing more games to be aired for free.

Also, the NFL imposes the Black Out Rule, which states that any home game not sold out 72 hours in advance will not be televised in that team's home territory. This encourages ticket sales and generates more revenue for the League. The NFL argues that TiVo and its video sharing capabilities will result in decreased home game attendance and therefore, home games not being broadcast in particular parts of the country. NFL executives feel that TiVo is allowing copyright infringement and broadcast abuse to become the norm for subscribers, and foresee TiVo users "improperly allowing another individual in a region where a non-sold-out game has been blacked out to access a digital recording of the game and to show that game commercially." An even bigger concern is that TiVo users could actually distribute the game while it is being broadcast - another violation of the NFL's telecast copyright.

TiVo's rapidly increasing popularity will make it extremely difficult for the NFL's stance to be effective, and executives might have to accept the fact that football fans have found a loophole in Sunday Ticket - and saved themselves $219.