Darlo Uncovered

Seems the league are imposing new rules on match highlights.

Going off Kev's Twitter feed (and media officials at other clubs), they want the highlights uploaded on the Saturday but the club can't publish them until Monday so the league can use the material on the Sunday instead.

Which seems to me to be outrageous, particularly if clubs have sponsorship deals around their highlights.

Why should the league use Kev's material before the club?

(P.S. Kev - forgive me if any of this is wrong).

Was reading this too gramps. Volunteers being forced to upload full 90 minutes of games to the league by midnight on Saturday. Then not allowed to post their own footage till 00:01 on Monday mornings. While the league will post the footage on Sunday.

Rediculous to put these restrictions upon volunteers who do this for the good of their clubs. Kev has done an absolutely brilliant job over the years helping exiles like myself stay connected with the club and we'reall very thankful. But I would not want to see this change from a labour of love to a task that only benefits the league for him. Unfortunately as with many commercial changes to football the only people who ever lose out are the fans.

I know NL Prem clubs are required to do that but that is because assessments of officials at that level are done via video footage rather than the man in the stand. They have been pushed this year that Saturday night is the deadline due to a few not meeting this expectation last season.

Question what if a club doesn't have volunteers videoing the games or is that mandatory at NL Regional as well as NL Premier.

To be honest this strikes me as a trial to bring video assessment in at a lower level.

Its mandatory for the home side to video the game & provide assessor + away team with a recording.

The uploading requirement is wrapped up with this deal:

https://www.innovationbham.com/single-p ... nal-League

The restrictions on club's using their own footage on platforms that directly generate them revenue is what I find really objectionable. It doesn't seem reasonable to exploit the efforts of volunteers and drive traffic to a league website with no financial benefit confirmed.

Ultimately the end result is that DFC fans will be getting a worse service this season, with first highlights (independently edited & hosted) not available until Sunday & our own short/extended highlights embargoed until Monday.

A service going backwards & disadvantaging our own club is never going to be popular.

What if Kev's footage belongs to Kev and he uploads it on his own Youtube account?

Couldn't the club provide one copy to the league, while Kev does what he wants with his footage?*

*albeit it is exactly the same footage.

They certainly put a positive spin on what benefits this will have for the clubs but it will be interesting to see what that means in practice and the impact on Kev and his sterling work.

I probably should be careful what I say, but sod it. I don’t care anymore. Also apologies for any poor grammar. I’m typing this on my iPad.

According to last season’s league rules - or the pages I read in regards to our media responsibilities - the requirement to film the game has always been there. There was also a curfew on what you could use footage wise. However this was aimed more at National level because of the agreement with BT sport. It was never really enforced at North / South level. So many clubs, myself included, just kind of did what they wanted to and all was well in the world.

Thats seemingly all changed this summer. In a league meeting in July (about 3 weeks before the season was due to start) the league announced the deal with Pitchero for North, South and presumably National level as well.

It basically requires the home side to film the game and upload 90 minutes of footage via FTP to Scout7. Pitchero then uses the footage to whatever ends they want and the league / referee assessors etc can use the footage for assessments. The deadline for sending the entire footage over is meant to be 11pm on a Saturday and the next morning for a midweek deal.

Also as part of this scout7 deal other clubs and media outlets can access the footage to use. Clubs are supposed to be able to do some video stuff after a game to promote their extended highlights.

Apparently there is supposed to be some trickle down revenue from this new deal. There are many issues but I’ll tick the principle ones off - I actually wrote a letter to the league with these points in but have yet to hear a reply. This was about a week and half ago.

- The announcement in July was totally the wrong time to do it. To my knowledge no clubs at our level had been consulted or even asked if this was something they could do. The correct way to do it would have been to reveal the plan in January and seek constructive feedback from clubs.

- The revenue the league talk about hasn’t been specified in any real detail. The league also don’t seem to care that clubs have built deals around their current packages and offers.

- The deadline to upload the footage is utterly ridiculous. I know for a fact I probably won’t meet an 11pm deadline. Now if I can’t, I dare say other people won’t either. I say this because I’ve got a pretty decent iMac rig which can whip out an entire 90 minutes of unedited footage pretty quickly. Probably in about 30 minutes.

However there are bottle necks. Getting the footage off the camera takes a while and the other problem is upload speed. My upload speed isn’t the greatest and I get throttled back pretty quickly. As you can imagine I upload a lot of video stuff as it is. Also uploading stuff from a midweek game ain’t going to happen either. I’ve got work the next day.

As I pointed out in my letter I don’t take any money from the club. So at a very basic level who is paying for the electricity to power my computer for the extra few hours needed to upload this footage?

- Other clubs and media outlets being able to use our footage isn’t something I’m happy with either. If all clubs upload their footage at the same time then its fair. We for example could scout someone else and they in turn could scout us. However if a club doesn’t then the playing field isn’t level.

- The deadline for being able to use our footage is also massively restrictive and simply not needed. The vast majority of views we get come from our goal packages. The league know this so in my opinion they are cutting us out of our prime slot.

- We've not been told exactly what we can post during the curfew. Are the goals allowed? Or are we limited to picking out a moment or two? No one has really explained that to me yet.

- The other issue for some clubs will be they don’t have anyone to do this. No equipment or volunteers. They sprung this a few weeks before the season starts when budgets etc are all sorted. Not great.

- People like myself aren’t getting paid by clubs and no additional cash for extra duties is seemingly being made available. Also people aren’t being credited either it would seem. Personally I believe the league are guilty in allowing this model to develop. BT sport I believe don’t pay people at clubs (they may make some equipment available, I don’t know). Once again this is a situation where people who do a lot of work aren’t getting any payment or recognition. Have a read of the press release from the league… no mention of who is filming the games. While I volunteer my time freely I’m doing it for the club and not the league.

- Tbh I’m not too bothered about recognition personally from a league level. I’m happy enough knowing our supporters know who does the graft. I’m also 35 and well into an IT career now. However there are some younger people doing this at other clubs who would benefit massively from a little recognition. It pisses me off when take advantage.

As I explained in my letter (which I sent via the club in the proper manner) I get that the league has a product which they want to promote. I’m not 100% against what they are trying to do but I would like to see compromise. I’ve suggested the following model:

- Allow clubs to do their goals after the game in a timely manner.
- Clubs then send the goals and a couple of key incidents to pitchero to do what they want with.
- The full 90 minutes is then upload over the next few days.
- Clubs can then post their extended highlights on Sunday evening.
- Camera folks / clubs are paid an agreed fee for their work / use of their equipment by the league / pitchero

To be that would be reasonable compromise to me. I doubt anything will be done. Instead they’ll wrap the requirements in with the league rules and say its part and parcel of being in the league. Fair enough if you are a full time club and you are paying people. However not at this level where the majority of people are doing it for their club on a volunteer basis.

I’m not at Salford on Saturday as I’m at a gig. As it stands this might be a good thing. I’ll be watching to see what happens. I suspect clubs will break the rules quite freely on this. There are a lot of peeved off people.

I should point out the club have been very supportive but obviously there is a limit to how far we can fight back without potentially getting ourselves in bother :-/

points deduction for not supporting extortion?

what are the league going to do with the money they rip off?

best to see how their money grubbing fails before complying to their greed.

some fans' boycott by all clubs of league sponsors seems appropriate.

The National League are a law unto themselves. They don't care about fans or people who work / volunteer for their clubs. They do what they want knowing we can't do anything about it and they have rules no other leagues have eg extra seats for play offs, dress code in the boardroom and fines for not attending league meetings. The only way anything will change is if ALL clubs pull together, which probably won't happen.

Sorry to hear you've been put in this position keV. As I've said your work and efforts have been much appreciated and I think invaluable. You've managed to record stuff that you can look back on with pride. It's a shame all the clubs can't grow a pair and say we're not being dictated to.

dfc4me wrote:The National League are a law unto themselves. They don't care about fans or people who work / volunteer for their clubs. They do what they want knowing we can't do anything about it and they have rules no other leagues have eg extra seats for play offs, dress code in the boardroom and fines for not attending league meetings. The only way anything will change is if ALL clubs pull together, which probably won't happen.

Extra seats for play-offs? Are you sure about that?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

don'tbuythesun wrote:Sorry to hear you've been put in this position keV. As I've said your work and efforts have been much appreciated and I think invaluable. You've managed to record stuff that you can look back on with pride. It's a shame all the clubs can't grow a pair and say we're not being dictated to.

As an Exile I echo these comments, thanks for your great work Kev. Also thanks for explaining the new league rules Kev, your compromise makes perfect sense. I guess the main problem is how late in the day the rules have been brought in as you say no time for consultation with the clubs. I guess the restrictions apply just as much to away matches you cover or is there a loophole?

bga wrote:

don'tbuythesun wrote:Sorry to hear you've been put in this position keV. As I've said your work and efforts have been much appreciated and I think invaluable. You've managed to record stuff that you can look back on with pride. It's a shame all the clubs can't grow a pair and say we're not being dictated to.

As an Exile I echo these comments, thanks for your great work Kev. Also thanks for explaining the new league rules Kev, your compromise makes perfect sense. I guess the main problem is how late in the day the rules have been brought in as you say no time for consultation with the clubs. I guess the restrictions apply just as much to away matches you cover or is there a loophole?

It's an interesting point.

From the way the rules have been described, it is the home team who are required to provide the footage and who are restricted as to what they can do with their footage and when.

So if the away team also produces footage - they are not obliged to do anything with it?

Spyman wrote:

bga wrote:

don'tbuythesun wrote:Sorry to hear you've been put in this position keV. As I've said your work and efforts have been much appreciated and I think invaluable. You've managed to record stuff that you can look back on with pride. It's a shame all the clubs can't grow a pair and say we're not being dictated to.

As an Exile I echo these comments, thanks for your great work Kev. Also thanks for explaining the new league rules Kev, your compromise makes perfect sense. I guess the main problem is how late in the day the rules have been brought in as you say no time for consultation with the clubs. I guess the restrictions apply just as much to away matches you cover or is there a loophole?

It's an interesting point.

From the way the rules have been described, it is the home team who are required to provide the footage and who are restricted as to what they can do with their footage and when.

So if the away team also produces footage - they are not obliged to do anything with it?

Based on the press release I agree with you. It also talks about providing the Home club with their own Scout7 technology, that also suggests to me the coverage is "owned" by the League. Kev has presumably seen more than we have, be interested to learn if there is a loophole. As it appears the League have not consulted with clubs over this there is the real possibility they have not even considered the fact away teams may video games!

Kev, is it worth us pestering the league with e mails or best to leave the board to take this up?

This all smacks of unnecessary clowntownsim of the highest order and simply rips off hard working volunteers by making them do much of the work for no reward.

As fans we already receive a better service than these pitcheroo/scout7 chaps are going to offer and that should continue. Kev does a fantastic job bringing this service to the fans and us exiles rely on this to feel part of the action. He has suggested a sensible compromise (above) which means it wont happen.

I dont want or need our club being forced to funnel our views into a Scout7 produced three-minute highlight package (no doubt full of lovely adverts) and nor do we need their help with digital platforms, including official websites and social channels. What benefit does the club get out of this arrangement? How much money are pitcheroo/scout7 making on the back of free labour within the clubs? How much are the clubs being charged for this fantastic scout7 technology (aka an annotated video) that will revolutionise post match analysis?

BTW is it pitcheroo who knock out those ( in my inexpert view) bland, dull and frankly almost useless websites that all non league clubs seem to have?

MKDarlo wrote:BTW is it pitcheroo who knock out those ( in my inexpert view) bland, dull and frankly almost useless websites that all non league clubs seem to have?

Yeh but that isn't really their fault. If a club doesn't have the technical expertise you can almost see why this is a decent product and off the shelf official website for a club.

dfc4me wrote:they have rules no other leagues have eg extra seats for play offs, dress code in the boardroom and fines for not attending league meetings

Not one of your examples is a true example of something the NL do that no other league do. For what it's worth most of the guys at the top of the NL are ex non-league managers/people involved in NL football - yes there is a commercial aspect but grand assumptions and generalisations are usually incorrect.

I'll probably take Kev's view that this has been badly implemented, clubs are ultimately the members of the league so actually they should be the power in it. It should have been through a proper consultation period before pushing it. It's undisputable the objective is commercial gain but I suspect the detriment / implications on members wasn't fully appreciated so doubt it was specifically decided to be done "at all costs"

I've been out most of the day and have just seen and been able (I hope) to digest what has been said above. As I understand it the highlights that we have been seeing over the last few seasons have been something that the league demands that clubs produce, but without, at NLN and NLS level, any other demands until this has been raised.

Can I ask on what basis the league have been able to operate this condition thus far and if the club had not complied what sanctions could have resulted? Does anyone know? Do all clubs produce highlights and if not what has happened to those that do not?

The way the announcement has been pitched has it clearly been sold as a great additional benefit to clubs, but it seems to ignore the voluntary nature of the work being done, almost as if they think that the videos appear by magic without any time or effort at the local level. There appears to be some hint in the article that they will supply the means to producing the required footage. Will this mean that they will also expect a minimum levels of quality in what is produced (which some clubs may be unable to furnish)? If a volunteer fails to meet their requirements will they be "sacked" (a laughable idea for someone who isn't employed in the first place) and then they will actually employ someone to do this work?

What would happen to volunteer and club if, for reasons beyond their control (illness, holiday, act of god) the video could not be produced for certain matches?

It seems fine if the people running this new "benefit" were rolling it out by furnishing clubs with an external employed workforce who will be able to provide cover and minimum levels of what they expect to transmit, but surely they can't be serious trying to impose this on the goodwill of volunteers.

TFDM wrote:Apparently there is supposed to be some trickle down revenue from this new deal.

Perhaps this is the key point here.

How much? How often? Will it actually ever turn up?

If it's a reasonable amount, and the clubs themselves don't take advantage of their volunteers, then surely everyone will be happy.

Who are these people making up rules as they go? They are just not in the real world. To enforce these 'regulations' only a month before the start of the season is totally unrealistic.
Pitchero or the league should provide the means to complete the work, and pay for it. That way every team would be equal.
Kev, bless him, has GIVEN his time, effort and funds this service so is ENTITLED to be paid for this employment.
If the NL insist on filming, then as a private citizen, i will demand that they seek and obtain my permission under the Data Protection Act before invading my privacy and publishing pictures of my ugly mug. Even in the town centre, videoing is subject to regulation, so these League 'regulators' should be careful otherwise they could be on the wrong side of the law themselves!
Just unbelieveable, sadly this is the price of a so-called 'professional' League. The only winners will be lawyers when it all gets to court, arguing about Intellectual Property Rights, infringement of copyright, HMRC & tax, Data Protection. Can't they see, it is through the likes of Kev and other volunteers up & down the country who do it for the love of the game and their club, that keeps grassroots football alive. Thanks again to all those dedicated volunteers and SHAME ON PITCHERO & LEAGUE OFFICIALS.

jjljks wrote:Who are these people making up rules as they go? They are just not in the real world. To enforce these 'regulations' only a month before the start of the season is totally unrealistic.
Pitchero or the league should provide the means to complete the work, and pay for it. That way every team would be equal.
Kev, bless him, has GIVEN his time, effort and funds this service so is ENTITLED to be paid for this employment.
If the NL insist on filming, then as a private citizen, i will demand that they seek and obtain my permission under the Data Protection Act before invading my privacy and publishing pictures of my ugly mug. Even in the town centre, videoing is subject to regulation, so these League 'regulators' should be careful otherwise they could be on the wrong side of the law themselves!
Just unbelieveable, sadly this is the price of a so-called 'professional' League. The only winners will be lawyers when it all gets to court, arguing about Intellectual Property Rights, infringement of copyright, HMRC & tax, Data Protection. Can't they see, it is through the likes of Kev and other volunteers up & down the country who do it for the love of the game and their club, that keeps grassroots football alive. Thanks again to all those dedicated volunteers and SHAME ON PITCHERO & LEAGUE OFFICIALS.

Brian Barwick is the Chairman of the National League. Need any more be said?

jjljks wrote:Who are these people making up rules as they go? They are just not in the real world. To enforce these 'regulations' only a month before the start of the season is totally unrealistic.
Pitchero or the league should provide the means to complete the work, and pay for it. That way every team would be equal.
Kev, bless him, has GIVEN his time, effort and funds this service so is ENTITLED to be paid for this employment.
If the NL insist on filming, then as a private citizen, i will demand that they seek and obtain my permission under the Data Protection Act before invading my privacy and publishing pictures of my ugly mug. Even in the town centre, videoing is subject to regulation, so these League 'regulators' should be careful otherwise they could be on the wrong side of the law themselves!
Just unbelieveable, sadly this is the price of a so-called 'professional' League. The only winners will be lawyers when it all gets to court, arguing about Intellectual Property Rights, infringement of copyright, HMRC & tax, Data Protection. Can't they see, it is through the likes of Kev and other volunteers up & down the country who do it for the love of the game and their club, that keeps grassroots football alive. Thanks again to all those dedicated volunteers and SHAME ON PITCHERO & LEAGUE OFFICIALS.

A bit of a follow on to this - The old Evenwood Town ground is shared with the village cricket team, who are suffering from spates of vandalism and have finally managed to get grants in place to fund CCTV installation. These grants appear to be in the balance as the Parish Council who hold the lease insist that, due to human rights issues, they have to put some process in place before they can give permission for these cameras to go ahead. So people walking dogs, thieving scroates etc are considered when filming in public - as jjljks says, where does that leave a match where 2000+ people are affected?

Nigel Batches Beard wrote:

jjljks wrote:Who are these people making up rules as they go? They are just not in the real world. To enforce these 'regulations' only a month before the start of the season is totally unrealistic.
Pitchero or the league should provide the means to complete the work, and pay for it. That way every team would be equal.
Kev, bless him, has GIVEN his time, effort and funds this service so is ENTITLED to be paid for this employment.
If the NL insist on filming, then as a private citizen, i will demand that they seek and obtain my permission under the Data Protection Act before invading my privacy and publishing pictures of my ugly mug. Even in the town centre, videoing is subject to regulation, so these League 'regulators' should be careful otherwise they could be on the wrong side of the law themselves!
Just unbelieveable, sadly this is the price of a so-called 'professional' League. The only winners will be lawyers when it all gets to court, arguing about Intellectual Property Rights, infringement of copyright, HMRC & tax, Data Protection. Can't they see, it is through the likes of Kev and other volunteers up & down the country who do it for the love of the game and their club, that keeps grassroots football alive. Thanks again to all those dedicated volunteers and SHAME ON PITCHERO & LEAGUE OFFICIALS.

A bit of a follow on to this - The old Evenwood Town ground is shared with the village cricket team, who are suffering from spates of vandalism and have finally managed to get grants in place to fund CCTV installation. These grants appear to be in the balance as the Parish Council who hold the lease insist that, due to human rights issues, they have to put some process in place before they can give permission for these cameras to go ahead. So people walking dogs, thieving scroates etc are considered when filming in public - as jjljks says, where does that leave a match where 2000+ people are affected?

I'd guess a line on the back of the ticket saying that by attending the match you are consenting to your image being reproduced, would probably suffice.

On the subject of copyright raise above - do the league have some license that they grant to Kev and the other volunteers who video the games that gives them control over the material produced? Has Kev given up all or some of his rights to the copyright of the material he shoots my agreeing to such a license?

I would imagine the league owns the copyright to be honest. I'm not totally bothered by the copyright aspect of it. I'm also not overlly fussed by the league wanting to use the footage either if I'm honest.

All I think folks from clubs want (and its not just me from speaking to various people who fulfill a similar role) is some compromise. They want the deadlines rolling back because they are impractical and eat into a Saturday evening when people have probably been on their feet for most of the day. They also want to be able to use some of the footage after the game before its been seen by all and sundry elsewhere.

After that I'm quite happy for others to use a few minutes of action because I know we'll have still have a chunk of viewership for the goals on our site and our highlights will still retain some value because of commentary and additional footage.

I really don't think that’s too much to ask, especially given the level we are at.

Alternatively if the league wants to run the setup they are proposing then I think they should be paying people doing the work a reasonable amount because clearly they think there is some value to the product. If they coughed up a few quid to people doing the work and the 'trickle down' revenue they speak about is a decent amount then I could make my peace with it.

There is room for both clubs and the league to work together. However there doesn't appear to be much feedback from the league.

We'll see what happens at the weekend, but I suspect several clubs will simply ignore it. And the entire thing won't work unless the league gets clubs and volunteers on board.

TFDM wrote:I would imagine the league owns the copyright to be honest. I'm not totally bothered by the copyright aspect of it. I'm also not overlly fussed by the league wanting to use the footage either if I'm honest.

All I think folks from clubs want (and its not just me from speaking to various people who fulfill a similar role) is some compromise. They want the deadlines rolling back because they are impractical and eat into a Saturday evening when people have probably been on their feet for most of the day. They also want to be able to use some of the footage after the game before its been seen by all and sundry elsewhere.

After that I'm quite happy for others to use a few minutes of action because I know we'll have still have a chunk of viewership for the goals on our site and our highlights will still retain some value because of commentary and additional footage.

I really don't think that’s too much to ask, especially given the level we are at.

Alternatively if the league wants to run the setup they are proposing then I think they should be paying people doing the work a reasonable amount because clearly they think there is some value to the product. If they coughed up a few quid to people doing the work and the 'trickle down' revenue they speak about is a decent amount then I could make my peace with it.

There is room for both clubs and the league to work together. However there doesn't appear to be much feedback from the league.

We'll see what happens at the weekend, but I suspect several clubs will simply ignore it. And the entire thing won't work unless the league gets clubs and volunteers on board.

A very reasonable position and one I do hope can be sorted.

theoriginalfatcat wrote:

TFDM wrote:Apparently there is supposed to be some trickle down revenue from this new deal.

Perhaps this is the key point here.

How much? How often? Will it actually ever turn up?

If it's a reasonable amount, and the clubs themselves don't take advantage of their volunteers, then surely everyone will be happy.

And will this amount of money be enough to cover the potential loss of current sponsors of the highlights Kev does?
Just as well it wasnt a subscription channel Darlo were running!

It would be interesting to know how clubs that don't normally video matches feel about this, I assume there are some. If they don't have a volunteer with the necessary IT expertise to do this are they going to have to pay someone adding yet another cost for their budget to cover.

Again thats something the league haven't thought about. There were quite a few games last season where I was the only one filming. Some clubs film them, some don't. My other fear is that those clubs who cover all there games home and away (admittedly not many at this level) will end up doing the home club's graft as well... which can f**k right off