Remember the joke that went around a few months back - the one where home theaters were going to be called illegal infringements? Well, it seems that reality has gone and clubbed satire upside the head again, because the NFL is claiming that any Superbowl party with a screen bigger than 55" crosses the line. They complained about a Church having a party (where the church was going to charge a small fee for entry). After the Church decided to allow free entry, this came up:

the NFL continued to complain, saying that showing the Super Bowl on a screen larger than 55 inches represents copyright infringement. While we, at first, doubted the reality of this, Ben Austro sent in the fact that it is, indeed, spelled out in copyright law that once you get above 55, you may be talking about a "public performance," though, as Ben notes, the wording sounds like it was clearly written by a lobbyist.

So... let me get this straight. Say I buy one of the TV's on this page (that are 55" or larger). Then I have a few friends over to watch a game (any game, it seems) - I'm violating the law. Heck, if I have a summer party, and toss more than 2 speakers out to my patio while a baseball game is on, I've violated the law. This is just stupid - it's clear to me that some industry lobbyist (and a short sighted one at that) inserted this language into one of the last updates of copyright law.

I wonder how many SuperBowl parties will be breaking the law this weekend?

Technorati Tags: stupidity, copyright