The debate is over the right to display ads alongside video footage from the cup
By Dylan Moran and Dan Satherley
Media commentators have struck out at the International Rugby Board's tight restrictions on media coverage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
Yesterday News Limited and Fairfax Australia announced they were effectively boycotting the 2011 Rugby World Cup by not seeking accreditation for the tournament, a move freelance journalist Richard Boock calls a reaction to "protectionism".
“It’s against every business trade sort of competitive rule in the book, but everyone accepts it because it’s just done for this tournament,” says Mr Boock.
The two media companies may be joined by the Australian Associated Press wire service, which is concerned it will not be able to pass on video content to subscribers.
The International Rugby Board’s restrictions on online rights for non-rights holders have been at the centre of the dispute for many months.
The rules stipulate online providers be restricted in the amount of video they are able to provide, and are not allowed to place their own advertisements to accompany highlight clips.
The three Australian companies have been trying to negotiate a deal with tournament organisers since June, and pulled out when they reached an impasse.
AUT journalism lecturer Greg Treadwell says the decision has "significant implications" for online news.
“In the face of declining advertising in print media, media companies are desperate to build a successful online business model and the IRB restrictions strike at that," says Mr Treadwell.
“Publishers will be particularly sensitive to being told how much rugby footage they can offer readers at a time when the rugby-playing world will be even more rugby-mad than normal. They have rights under the law for ‘fair use’ of footage, so they are being asked to contract themselves out of their legal rights."
Still, Mr Treadwell doesn't think an outright boycott is necessarily the right thing to do, but says the IRB will have to make the next move.
“I think the IRB is going to have to reconsider its demands. The media sound serious. To them every gain is important in the struggle to translate a healthy online readership into a healthy online income.”
Mr Boock says the changing media landscape is a stumbling block the various parties will have to overcome.
"One is the video content that newspapers and publishers are allowed to run on their news sites, on their online sites, and that really is something that’s sort of overtaken world sports events over the past five or 10 years, because in the past obviously newspapers didn’t have the ability to run video, so the rights holder's terrain or territory was very, very clearly defined – but now everyone’s having a piece of everything else, newspapers have got video content, audio, they’ve got podcasts, broadcasts, all sorts of things themselves, so they’re not really any different than a TV online site or a radio online site.
“I understand that there has to be a restriction or that sports events organisers are looking to have the distinction of the rights-holder’s territory aligned between what’s online video and what’s for print journalism and things like that and it’s something they’ve probably had to do.
"I mean why would you keep paying top bill for the TV rights if someone could just hose it all down through a non-rights holding accreditation?” asks Mr Boock.
The dispute centres around whether or not online providers can show their own ads along with video content – the main source of revenue for such sites – but Mr Boock believes the IRB’s stance may harm the development of the game in growing markets, such as the USA and Germany.
“This is just the worst I’ve heard yet, where they’re saying if a German non-rugby site wanted to run some news clips or something on the Rugby World Cup they wouldn’t be able to put their own ads on. It just defies explanation apart from [the IRB] being really greedy,
“You would think that they would understand that the more coverage they got would be good for all parties concerned,” he says.
But with online media not being a new development, and video content being displayed on non-rights holder websites at the last tournament, Mr Boock says the IRB could have had better provisions in place for news websites.
“I’m surprised they haven’t got something like that, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be any different than radio if you had an internet rights holder,” he says.
The fact Fairfax and News Limited, who have long been bitter rivals on the media landscape, are working together to take a stand shows that the situation has probably reached a tipping point.
The Rugby World Cup begins on September 9.
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