The Premier League season kicks off in earnest this weekend, and you can be sure thousands of fans will be trawling Twitter in order to get a free glimpse of the first goals of what promises to be an exciting season.
However, officials at the Premier League are set to clamp down on the practice of Vines and GIFs of the latest goals being posted on Twitter and other social media.
Speaking with the BBC’s Newsbeat, the Premier League’s Director of Communications, Dan Johnson said, “You can understand that fans see something, they can capture it, they can share it, but ultimately it is against the law.”
He added: “It’s a breach of copyright and we would discourage fans from doing it, we’re developing technologies like gif crawlers, Vine crawlers, working with Twitter to look to curtail this kind of activity. I know it sounds as if we’re killjoys but we have to protect our intellectual property.”
Football fans need to either stump up for a Sky Sports or BT Sport package, or subscribe to The Sun or The Times’ digital packages to watch goals officially.
The latter pair show goals on their apps within two minutes of them being scored, at a cost of £7 a month. The alternative is to pay nothing and wait until Match of the Day airs on BBC One later on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
The move is likely to lead to more criticism of the Premier League, which has this week been accused by fan groups of profiteering and failing to put supporters first. The current TV deal is worth £3 billion domestically, with millions more made from the sale of rights overseas.
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Via: BBC
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
