Fellas... do not post any recruiting lists or offers from Rivals.com

[huskers1217]

I was recently recruited by a rivals member to join thier site

 

[vtpoop]

Hypothetical. What if someone with a Rivals subscription read an article and passed the info on to you in conversation. I mean, is there some law that says you can't pass that information on? Or are members sworn to oaths of secrecy punishable by death?

 

[sparko]

good questions .. i recommended to gator fan earlier in the thread that he institute a "terms of us" to sportshoopla removing responsibility from SH of moderating/monitoring posts .. that would probably pull SH out of the equation.

Rivals does have right to tell you when and where and what can be posted from their site and they do, in their terms of use. thing is you never have to acknowledge their terms of use unless you sign up for an account...a big gray area that's been around on the internet and better off assuming that you have to abide by a site's TOU, whether you have to acknowledge their TOU or not

that being said, this happens all the time and it's very likely just a BIG FAT THREAT and nothing more. paper and stamps are cheap. litigation over an enormous gray area like this .. is not

if it were rampant or, i could seem some concern -- but it's not ..

if it were blatantly obvious, like posting an exact copy of an article from the pay-side of a site, it would seem a concern

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

The Gator fan is the owner and person who hosts and runs this site, FYI.

Ghost, meet the Hokie family.

Hokie family, meet Ghost.

 

[Camfantasy]

The Gator fan is the owner and person who hosts and runs this site, FYI.

Ghost, meet the Hokie family.

Hokie family, meet Ghost.

Now we all know a ghost! LOL

 

[HokieGhost]

Hypothetical. What if someone with a Rivals subscription read an article and passed the info on to you in conversation. I mean, is there some law that says you can't pass that information on? Or are members sworn to oaths of secrecy punishable by death?

To follow up on your thoughts, here are a few of my ramblings...

1) Are we going to be somehow required to double-check with Rivals to make sure what we're posting doesn't violate their stated copyright standards?

2) How do we know we're "giving away" Rivals' paid state secrets if we don't have a paid subscription?

3) Is the information Rivals publishes for free, like commitment lists, TRULY proprietary material worthy of protected status? If it truly is propriety material, why aren't they charging for that, too? Is it because their legal people are telling them they can't? You know very well that Rivals would charge for that information if they could.

4) And finally, how are we supposed to treat information passed along by Rivals recruiting folks on Twitter and/or Facebook? Are those tweets also covered by some magical blanket of legal protection?

 

[HokieGhost]

The Gator fan is the owner and person who hosts and runs this site, FYI.

Ghost, meet the Hokie family.

Hokie family, meet Ghost.

Hmmm...I thought EVERYONE knew this.



LOL...j/k...Hi, Ghost!

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

At this point just cite everyone. I was kicked off of Rivals for being a moderator on this site. I never took anything from there and brought it here, but was kicked off because I "ran a competing site." Fine.... I never even got a refund for the year that i had paid (10 months of which, I was inactive) because I just wanted the crap to end. I just said, fuck it, and swallowed the payment. No big deal.

If none of us are Rivals subscribers, how can we be stealing it. What TAE says in #2 above is so so true.

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

and by cite everyone, I mean twitter, word of mouth whatever, just say what you hear and protect yourself. Don't burn your sources (of course), just say, per word of mouth if tht is how you hear it.

 

[m477hokie]

I have always thought copyright is a disaster, and this just confirms it. While I was at Tech, I went to a lecture by Richard M Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation, and he talked a lot about the history of copyright. He basically said that it was originally instituted to ensure that quality was maintained so that the original source was not misrepresented. Only recently has it become a tool to ensure that profits are not lost, and he went on for most of the time explaining why that was wrong, it was very convincing.
What gets tricky in this situation is how far the rights of their information extend, as in us using their lists, and then on top of that drawing our own conclusions and making our own projections -- that could potentially be seen as misrepresenting their information. Stating that it is your opinion (after citing a rivals resource) could prevent this type of infringement, which I think is their only legitimate claim.

 

[VTscores]

The internet and sports talk

I'm a big believer in the internet, and also that public information should be free. Sorry, but taking public sports information and attempting to force people to pay for it is not something I will support.

If websites can generate income from advertising, more power to them. To attempt to charge me for what is basically chatting about sports in public is not something I will support.

Rivals puts out some interesting information, and some that is self-serving. If Rivals puts out a "Rivals 150" recruiting list, its only value comes if people know what it is. It is, in essence, self-promotion.

No doubt it costs some money to run a website, and some money to pay for good analysis. It's up to Rivals to come up with a way to pay for what most people consider a part-time hobby - talking about college sports. It seems like advertising is a good way to do this. Ultimately, we're all going to find out which recruits go where. The only real value is in the timing of the analysis, the evaluation, and the predictions.

There are plenty of free sources of information, and opinions are worth mostly what you pay on a free site.

Kudos to those at Sports SportsHoopla for providing this forum, and you are right to have some rules of the road for use of the site to avoid any legal entanglements.

 

[Chrish1023]

Does the fact that Rivals is involved with Yahoo have anything to do with them providing free information? I don't know how that would affect anything, but I'm sure there is some deal in place between the two which states that some of the material on Rivals is to remain free.

 

[Sleepy T]

Does the fact that Rivals is involved with Yahoo have anything to do with them providing free information? I don't know how that would affect anything, but I'm sure there is some deal in place between the two which states that some of the material on Rivals is to remain free.

Or maybe some of the information is free in order to "lure" in the customers. Think about it, if you typed in the web address to rivals, scout, 247 or any other recruiting outlet, and a BIG BLACK SCREEN came up and stated.."ENTER USER ID AND PASSWORD"...."YOU CANNOT ENTER THIS WEBSITE AND VIEW ANY MATERIAL UNLESS YOU ARE A BONAFIDE PAYING SUBSCRIBER"...how many customers/subscribers do you think they would have?? Not many IMO. These sights have to offer something on the free side (and they also typically run a free trial) to show a potential customer what they have to offer. Not to mention (going along with what you said in above post), no one is going to see any advertising if the sight is closed off to the general public.

 

[sparko]

VTScores -- great points and I agree with all you said ..

Chrish1023 -- bro (VTSparks) is exactly right. They give you a little tease in the form of free content and free trials to hopefully get you to pay for their stuff. Google figured it out a long time ago and Yahoo should know by now too: the money is in advertising. Getting people to pay for something like college football content, ESPECIALLY when there is just as much FREE content out there, is a lost cause. Their only hope are tactics like threatening letters to try to scare these competitors into crippling their users. Rivals is owned by Yahoo also. They kept the rivals brand and web domain because it was already well-known and established prior to the purchase (much like YouTube is to google).

What do people actually pay for these bullshit subscriptions anyway?

Anyway -- I'm done with this thread

 

[bigesse16]

You sign up for Rivals the same reason you take out any other type of subscription to a media source, whether it's a newspaper, magazine, etc. I have a Rivals account and have not been shy in admitting it, but I don't know what exactly is the problem on this board, if it's really Brian asking for discretion because there's nothing on here right now that has been addressed on the board. His only complaint was the visitors during January, but that was posted on another site and not here, I believe. Regardless, I enjoy Rivals and like reading the articles and talking on the message boards. This site is great too and I enjoy both. To each his own though.

 

[sparko]

BLASPHEMER !!! kidding .. i look at rivals too .. i'm just not gonna pay for it .. it's not worth it to me .. why buy the cow, right?

 

[VT_Football_Fan]

His only complaint was the visitors during January, but that was posted on another site and not here, I believe. .

I know a site that posted the list of visitors but it wasn't this one. Not going to drag any other sites into this mess either so no names will be given.

 

[HokieGhost]

You sign up for Rivals the same reason you take out any other type of subscription to a media source, whether it's a newspaper, magazine, etc. I have a Rivals account and have not been shy in admitting it, but I don't know what exactly is the problem on this board, if it's really Brian asking for discretion because there's nothing on here right now that has been addressed on the board. His only complaint was the visitors during January, but that was posted on another site and not here, I believe. Regardless, I enjoy Rivals and like reading the articles and talking on the message boards. This site is great too and I enjoy both. To each his own though.

The Cease and Desist letter was a little over the top, don't you think? If Brian is really behind this, then someone needs to tell him he's going after the wrong people.

 

[hunzworth]

Hypothetical. What if someone with a Rivals subscription read an article and passed the info on to you in conversation. I mean, is there some law that says you can't pass that information on? Or are members sworn to oaths of secrecy punishable by death?

THIS^. I sat down and counted, there are at least 15 people that i see or talk/text daily with either Rivals or TSL. When you know people that have similar interest it is only natural that you talk about those interest.

 

[HokieGhost]

One more thing...the next time Brian picks up new info on this board and posts it to HH, someone here at SportsHoopla should call him on it.