The World Surf League tattles on BeachGrit!
We have just started the second day of a three day sentence for posting World Surf League videos on our BeachGrit Facebook (follow here!) and what a big bummer. What a sad punishment. We can’t touch our social media, per Facebook police rules. They lock it tight as a drum, meaning all of our wonderful stories go unshared for three whole days. Oh they ding you good for “copyright infringement.”
The unfortunate part is, we were following the very unclear WSL rules as they related to posting content but they changed them, quietly in the middle of the night, and sent Herr Zuckerberg’s henchmen to our doorstep without warning and hauled us into the concentration camp for three whole days.
I am bouncing a pebble off the wall right now and Derek is doing push-ups.
And this ain’t the way we handle our business in the surfs, is it? What happened to a good curse-filled yell? A punch to the teeth? I get that WSL CEO Paul Speaker has never surfed a day in his life but come now. Can’t we at least pretend to understand each other?
My pebble has rolled underneath Derek’s metal cot and I am playing Jailhouse Rock on a homemade harmonica. Derek has stopped doing push-ups and is fashioning a shiv out of a toilet paper roll.
I find litigiousness ugly in almost every circumstance. I find tattling uglier. My first job after university was an ill-begotten turn teaching 5th grade. I was a bad teacher but one thing I am proud of was instilling the ideal “snitches get stitches” into each and every young heart. If a child tattled about anything, the tattler got the punishment. By the end of the year nobody tattled. I either caught the kids being naughty myself or they found solutions that didn’t involve the damned authorities.
Herr Zuckerberg’s henchmen are telling me that Jailhouse Rock is copyrighted and have taken my harmonica away. Derek is doing push-ups again.
It’s not like there are thousands or even hundreds or even tens of surf websites. There are, like, seven so the pansy WSL image folk could have very easily sent out an email saying, “Take the shit down you fuckers…” and we would have complied. They also could have waited for me to wander by and knocked my teeth in. Either would have been preferable to their whiny crybaby tattle.
I have picked up Derek’s shiv and making small improvements. Derek is whistling Happy Birthday because he says the courts just turned over copyright protection on it and it now belongs to the public.
Next time I see the WSL I am going give it stitches.
Yes Chas. Yes. God I love this.
On a completely different note, it is a common phenomenon of totalitarian regimes to try and grasp complete control over media outlets.
…as in, the copyright thing…
Please sir…
Tell me more!
Oh! What did it say? And…DC? That you?
“Take the shit down you fuckers…” and we would have complied.
Haha yeah right, even they aren’t gullible enough to believe you wouldn’t crank out 1500 words on why the WSL is trying to strong arm you, the little guy and censorship and yada yada. Silver lining, you get your 1500 words either way, screw the WSL!
WSL taking a page from the highly respected and successful Recording Industry of America.
Rats, his whole family’s all rats…
Oh yes!
Wow, Facebook commenters are not very funny. I prefer to read the comments from the denizens in these posts on the site. I always come away enlightened and entertained. /joke about WSL or Stab goes here.
Maybe time to dust off that drone permit idea and get footage of the comps without having to sign away your lives. Alternatively, just sit slightly outside the contest area with a camera and post what you see.
Those 5th grade kids Chas taught are probably tough as fucking nails right by now. With each passing event I get more and more apathetic towards following the tour. Bobby Martinez had it right a few years ago.
Bobby for Prez of the revitalized Bud Light tour…
The WSL have been lucky this year at Snapper to get a continuous run of surfable swell. But for most events where they go on indefinite hold, after a few days of that the average WSL viewer moves on, gives up and is past caring. It is the other surf media that tells you it is back on and a posted video is just the sort of thing that might hook you back in to bothering to take an interest again.
I can kick Prodan in the nuts for you Chas if I see him.
I love Dave though! But yeah…there are no rules in that and war.
WSL doesn’t need to be profitable. It’s just another arrow in Dirk Ziff’s quiver, to be used for whatever he needs later. And we are all contributing to the size (and power to activate) of said arrow.
Simply incredible. Even the big 4 US sports don’t pull that shit. Hell, snooty euro football doesn’t even bat an eye at unaccredited bloggers or twitter people reposting video or GIF’s. The obvious reason being, that for any and all faults that they may have, they don’t have a fucking napoleon complex. They’re aware that the more people are sharing clips, photos, GIFs and whatever else, the better the chances are that something goes viral and that will in turn make them more money in the long run. But hey, when has pro surfing ever been anything but deaf & short sighted?
MLB has been pretty aggressive with enforcing copyright in the past through their Advanced Media division… though I think they have backed off recently (I don’t have links… too lazy)… none of that changes the fact that the WSL is being stupid about this. Why be like baseball anyway?
As a man of many interests I’ll out myself as a hockey fan (if my username wasn’t a dead give away). MLBAM recently took over the NHL’s live streaming service (which now streams even worse than a WSL webcast, it was fine before), and during that time both MLBAM & the NHL made statements basically saying that those platforms of sharing are essential to the growth of their platforms. More or less, if you’re not pirating a live stream for profit then you’re fine.
I’ve always assumed you had a weird thing going for Joshua Jackson.
Mostly just bitterness that he landed that role instead of me. The fucker stole my life of fame and glory at a young age. The best I can do for revenge is to tarnish his image and name through shitty internet comments.
Is that true?
Not in the least bit.
Just realized you may have been referencing my original posts about other professional leagues and not being robbed of child stardom. If so, yes, thats true.
You still dream of Joey, don’t you???
Joey?
Dawson’s Creek. Am I showing my age????
Nah, I should’ve been the target age for that but just never watched it. All I knew at the time was that Katie Holmes was in it and looked like a babe.
Sadly Scientology and the Devil (Tom Cruise) chewed her up and spit her out. So sad.
Hell of a comeback the Sharks have made this year, ey?
Been a Kings fan since the early 90’s so fuck the Sharks. Brent Burns excluded, that dude seems weird as hell and one of the few pro athletes in any sport that you’d want to grab a beer with.
At least you didn’t say Ducks fan.
Yeah, that’s been a rough one for me this year. Here in San Diego we got the Ducks farm team this year. So I have to go for them while they’re here then when they get called up gotta go against them. I lead a very hard life.
Why couldn’t I watch the Parko protest heat on the analyzer?
Dumb, dumb, dumb. The WSL should be welcoming every opportunity to get their content out to the masses. It’s about distribution and getting what you are selling directly to the people you want consuming it.
they’ll figure it out in another 5 years. maybe this is why Paul isn’t doing NFL anymore.
Probably.
Delete the BG FB and aid in sending Zuckerfuck back to the rags, site is such garbage just an NSA wet dream. What else do you expect from the WSl, it’s a massive corporate operation that will only become more oppressive with each day.
The WSL is a joke. I’m sure they think it makes them seem legitimate, but, really, they just come off as self-important and petty. No matter what, it’s just surfing, and, unlike baseball, it’s supposed to be fun. They’re probably miffed about having to explain Josh Kerr’s use of an iv after Rory brought it up… and also they haven’t been able to monetize anything (but might as well protect something that’s not making money!).