Why Not?

This week I'm going to road-trip up to Redmond. Normally, I would think it's crazy to travel three states to go to a tournament where I'm not even going to play. However, Potlatch is my favorite tournament ever. I've never been to Kaimana, Paganello, Poultry Days, Nationals, or Worlds, but until I do (and maybe even after I do), Potlatch will stay #1.

Potlatch is best of every thing that I love about ultimate - the best athletes, the best parties, the best silliness, and some of my best friends. It's a great feeling of escape from everything. For three days, the fields become your home. The festival atmosphere and quality of competition has had me playing some of the best ultimate I've ever played in the past. You roll out of your tent in the morning, and you're standing right on the fields. Play. Float down the river. Party. Repeat.

Unfortunately, this year, worlds fall on the same weekend so spectating highest level games might not be quite as good, but I don't think I'll mind too much. It might be nice to be able to walk around and watch some different games a little more than I've been able to in the past. Maybe I won't be as tired by the end as I have in the past. Last year, it took me about a week to recover.

I'm looking forward to the drive up just as much as the tourney itself, too. We're going to leave on Tuesday and take our time, and see some of the sights along the way. We're going to spend most of a day at Scout's cabin in the woods doing outdoorsy kind of things like fishing and hiking. I fully expect this next week to be awesome.

Summertime

I haven't played any ultimate since February. It's the longest stretch I've gone since I started playing in winter of 2005, and it's going to keep going until September at least. For the first time in a very long time, I really miss playing the game just for the sake of the game. Up until now, my motivations have been centered around team goals or personal goals. Now that the college season is over, I realize that I'm starting to kind of forget what playing is like. I can't visualize situations or plays as readily as I used to, and it's strange.

I really miss playing for the sake of exercising, too. I realize now that I'm much less productive and happy when I'm not getting regular workouts. I don't sleep as well at night and I generally feel unhealthier. I've gone from crutches to now walking in my walking boot, and next week I think I'm going to start PT again. I can tell already that it will be hard to not push myself to be more active than my doctor wants me to be. I find that once I break a self imposed barrier in rehab, like walking instead of crutching, there's no going back. I'm worried about what playing will be like and what I'll be able to do after being a couch potato for 5 months.

During other times in my life, if things were going badly or if I was unemployed and bumming around, I could always turn to ultimate or working out as something constant I could rely on while other things in my life changed. Right now, though, I'm just a bum.

I've been watching a huge amount of sports on TV and ultimate videos online. When I'm watching the world cup, or the NBA finals, I'm constantly thinking about how what I'm seeing applies to ultimate. I think watching Smaug for the better part of a season from the sidelines might be a good thing for me in the end, because I feel like I got a more objective, slightly removed perspective on the game. In the end though, I think about ultimate entirely too much and I miss it a lot.

Media Coverage of Ultimate

I find it very interesting that the last video that I posted, Luke Johnson's own footage of finals, was sent DMCA takedown notice by CBS Sports. I haven't taken copyright yet, so I don't have a fully informed opinion about this, but my impression is that copyright laws only protect your coverage of an event, not the game itself.

If Luke had posted the Go211 stream itself on Vimeo, that would clearly be an infringement of their copyright, but the video that he posted was entirely filmed and edited by him. I'd like to see what the contract between CBS and the USAU looks like, but it seems to me that Luke's video is his own property.

From about 2 minutes of Googling the subject, I found this case:

National Basketball Ass'n v. Motorola, Inc. 105 F.3d 841 C.A.2 (N.Y.) 1997
As noted, recorded broadcasts of NBA games-as opposed to the games themselves-are now entitled to copyright protection. The Copyright Act was amended in 1976 specifically to insure that simultaneously-recorded transmissions of live performances and sporting events would meet the Act's requirement that the original work of authorship be “fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” 17 U.S.C. § 102(a). Accordingly, Section 101 of the Act, containing definitions, was amended to read:

A work consisting of sounds, images, or both, that are being transmitted, is “fixed” for purposes of this title if a fixation of the work is being made simultaneously with its transmission.

17 U.S.C. § 101. Congress specifically had sporting events in mind:

[T]he bill seeks to resolve, through the definition of “fixation” in section 101, the status of live broadcasts-sports, news coverage, live performances of music, etc.-that are reaching the public in unfixed form but that are simultaneously being recorded.

H.R. No. 94-1476 at 52, reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 5665. The House Report also makes clear that it is the broadcast, not the underlying game, that is the subject of copyright protection. In explaining how game broadcasts meet the Act's requirement that the subject matter be an “original work[ ] of authorship,” 17 U.S.C. § 102(a), the House Report stated:

When a football game is being covered by four television cameras, with a director guiding the activities of the four cameramen and choosing which of their electronic images are sent out to the public and in what order, there is little doubt that what the cameramen and the director are doing constitutes “authorship.”

Now, I haven't researched the subject, nor am I qualifed to be giving any legal advice, so please understand that this is just speculation.

If the USAU didn't want anyone else filming finals, they should have prevented people from doing so at the event. Did they post notices on the admission tickets that filming was not allowed?

More importantly, does USA Ultimate really want to prevent ultimate players from sharing and enjoying material from ultimate games that they've created themselves? I know USAU wants to become a more "legitimate sports organization," but at the same time we have to accept that media coverage in ultimate right now is overwhelmingly provided by the players themselves. The video that Luke made is excellent promotion for the sport, and in many ways more enjoyable for experienced players to watch than the professional coverage because Luke knows what he's doing and there doesn't have to be announcers explaining every rule of the game.

Maybe it's not appropriate to blame USAU for this. It might be that it was just some guy in an anti-piracy department cubicle sending a take-down notice for what he believed to be CBS property. I assume that USAU sold (how much is that actually worth?) the exclusive rights to film and broadcast the finals, so they're protecting themselves by not wanting other people to have video up. In the future, it seems they'll either have to go more open or more restricted with access to events that they plan on televising. My guess is, things will become more restrictive.

It's just another small step towards taking the sport of ultimate away from the players in an effort to become a "real sport."

Is that what we want?

Nationals

Carleton vs Florida - 2010 USAU College Finals from luke johnson on Vimeo.

There's a great video of nationals finals on vimeo (thanks to Luke Johnson) in high def and with all the arguing edited out. It's about 1000x more watchable than the live stream on Monday.

Carleton seems dedicated to slowing the game down and playing fundamental ultimate. Florida takes the huck look whenever it's there, and sometimes when it's not. They get away with this because they're playing incredible defense and Carleton can't seem to get much decent flow against them. Maybe it would have been dumb for Carleton to throw more aggressively, or maybe they just didn't have the players to match up with Florida's in the deep game. The first time I watched the finals, I felt like the outcome was somehow erroneous or unexpected. Watching it again with more clarity and continuity, Florida was the better team for the conditions and should usually win this game.

Florida has an amazing amount of athleticism, and Brodie really is the most dominant player in ultimate, although I don't regret not voting for him for Callahan after watching this game. My first thought on watching the game was that Carleton didn't adjust well enough to stop Florida's style of play, but upon watching the game again it seems like they were doing nearly everything they could. He was just unstoppable.

If we were doing a draft of college players to club teams (how sweet would that be?) I suppose Brodie would have to go #1 overall, but I would have concerns about melding his playing style into a team that isn't completely tailored to him. I really hope he decides to play club because I'd like to see how his skills translate to a higher level of play.