Bengals blog threatened by team. Are you really surprised?

by Josh Kirkendall on May 7, 2008 9:35 AM EDT in Legal/Off Field Issues

If you haven't seen this, then perhaps it might strike a dreadful trend. The Cincinnati Bengals have threatened another Cincinnati Bengals blog with a lawsuit because the site was using copyrighted photos and logos on their site.

We can't say we're surprised. The NFL in the past year have issued warnings and tightened policies about using their material. It was a basis of a post we wrote a few weeks back. And we're hardly surprised that the team would make an enemy of a fan-run site that, for the most part, promotes the team based on fanaticism -- which is in itself crazy because this team isn't all that successful (embarrassing and shaming would be better words). Though we'd advise to stripe hype that they shouldn't take it too personally. It's simply a nature of the business and we know that the Brown family is all about business -- not the actual game.

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Wow

I have never visited that site, so I am not sure exactly what they were doing which seemed to cause such a reaction. It is my understanding that most images and graphics in a blog would be covered under the “fair use” doctrine—if you are commenting/reporting on something and not claiming it “as your own” it is okay so long as you don’t mispresent or transform the image into something that was not intended. Their are thousands of blogs out there which use images without threat of a lawsuit. What is up?

by goffchile on May 7, 2008 9:58 AM EDT reply actions

What is up is...

the Bengals must want to put the entire orange-and-black blogosphere on notice by making an example out of one. I just don’t see where this makes any sense. Didn’t look like StripeHype was making any cash off of what they were doing, so you’d think the Bengals (and the NFL) would want MORE positive exposure of their brand by true (unpaid) fans. Instead, they turned one of them into an enemy.

WAY. TO. GO.

by TheWalrus1971 on May 7, 2008 11:03 PM EDT reply actions