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Comment by edlebert | Hacker News Reader

It is not RIGHT. The NFL has the _right_ to sell their content however they like, and they coordinate their blackout rules with the cable channels who pay for them. If you don't like it, the RIGHT action is to pay for cable, buy tickets, or do what I do and go without.

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Substitute "how things ought to be" for right. I'd be willing to pay a fair price, say $20/mo to stream NFL games and watch my out-of-market hometown team. I shouldn't have to pay for $100/mo of services I don't want to get access to them. Ideally, the market would be allowing me to purchase the good that I want, in practice, they have contracts that don't allow them to sell it to me.

Talking about "right" in regards to copyright law is a bit sticky given that the entire legal underpinning is 'how long ago do we have to extend it to keep Mickey Mouse in ABC/Disney's IP portfolio".

i know this doesnt help everyone out. but if you have verizon, you can pay $5 a month for mobile streaming most of (if not all) the games. plus if you have an appleTV you can airplay them over to your actual TV. this works well enough for me.

I still can't get them on my 65" TV though- and I would pay for it. I just don't want to have to get satellite.

I'm on the fence here. The NFL is not HBO. They're not locking down content and forcing you into old business models to get to their content. The NFL goes to GREAT LENGTHS to make content available to you without cheating. GREAT LENGTHS.

* Sunday Ticket is free for DirecTV users

* Sunday Ticket is $40/season with the purchase of $60 Madden 25 (meaning, $100/total for the whole season of Sunday Ticket), and does not require a cable/satellite package of any kind

* NFL Rewind offers all games and condensed games next-day (not live) for $40/season (or $10/mo)

* HDTV Bunny Ears or Aereo will provide local in-market games for free (or the cost of Aereo)

* Many games are broadcast online for free on NFL.com or through the website of the network showing the game, like Fox or CBS

And I'm sure there are other options, too.

My friends and I are discussing the NFL Rewind option, while it's not live, it does include condensed games which is great for fantasy players with lots of players across lots of teams.

> Sunday Ticket is free for DirecTV users

No, it is $60 per month or $300 / season.

> Sunday Ticket is $40/season with the purchase of $60 Madden 25 (meaning, $100/total for the whole season of Sunday Ticket), and does not require a cable/satellite package of any kind

That's a little misleading. A) It sold out before the season began. B) The cost is $100, because for people like me who don't own an XBOX or PS3 and bought the game for the coupon, I now have a game I'm never going to play. I shouldn't have any issues selling it, but it will be at a used game price.

Also, you are supposed to only be allowed the streaming option only if you can't get DirecTV service, which most people in the US can. IMO, skirting that rule (as I've done) is no better/worse than using a European IP. You are either being dishonest to the NFL, or to DirecTV.

> HDTV Bunny Ears or Aereo will provide local in-market games for free (or the cost of Aereo)

As they have for 40+ years. This discussion isn't about in-market games, it's for out-of-market. Also, depending on who you talk to (certainly the networks and the NFL), Aereo is considered cheating.

> Many games are broadcast online for free on NFL.com or through the website of the network showing the game, like Fox or CBS

No, many aren't. Some are. But the key is I want to watch my team every week, and my team (as most) only play a few primetime games per season, which tend to be streamed.

To conclude, I'm a avid sports fan who lives out of market, and I pay for the MLB package, the MLS package, various college sports subscriptions, and have paid the $300 for DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket in the past. I'm happy to pay for my sports, and I'd love to pay the NFL a reasonable price for an NFL package, but since they don't offer one, I have to resort to cheating DirecTV.

If you pay $300 for Sunday ticket with DirectTV call them up RIGHT NOW and get your refund. That's what someone pays at full price doing zero work to lower their bill. That's the price people pay who don't even try to get a lower price, the easy price.

I literally have never met someone who pays the $300 for Sunday Ticket, and I've never heard of DirectTV enforcing the $300 price tag. Sounds like you've had some terrible luck.

I notice you replied to everything except for Rewind.

The fact remains that there are many options depending on device, and the fact that you don't realize the price of DirectTV Sunday Ticket tells me that you seem to be more willing to cheat them than to find the right deal.

Seriously, if you want to cheat DirectTV call them up, go to retentions for cancelling service, and get FREE (or heavily discounted) Sunday Ticket, just like many others.

> Seriously, if you want to cheat DirectTV call them up, go to retentions for cancelling service, and get FREE (or heavily discounted) Sunday Ticket, just like many others.

Your entire first post was about getting NFL content without cheating (see: "The NFL goes to GREAT LENGTHS to make content available to you without cheating"). Whether you are dishonest to DirecTV's retention dept, or you are dishonest about your IP location, or are dishonest about your ability to get DirecTV service, or a slew of any other methods, it all involves being dishonest to someone.

The root problem is there is no way to get out of market games without resorting to cheating. Every other American sports league offers this type of subscription package.

The NFL has stated they're shopping the exclusivity of Sunday Ticket to carriers other than DirecTV starting next season. Hopefully that is the case so they can address this glaring hole.

> I notice you replied to everything except for Rewind.

I ignored Rewind because that doesn't involve live NFL games.

No offense but you have a lot of 'privledge' to insist that you are owed live broadcast of sports. So owed, in fact, that you can justify stealing it when same-day or next-day options are available to you.

I mean, go ahead, I justify a large amount of piracy myself, but you sound like someone dismissing a minimum of work (I have to CALL them and ASK to pay less? UGH!) in favor of reverting to piracy.

Please explain to me the difference in outcomes between piracy and using Aereo. In both cases you are getting someone to retransmit you a feed over the Internet, while paying nothing to the NFL in exchange, yet one of them is stealing and the other is perfectly alright.

I find the cognitive dissonance fascinating.

Because the NFL explicitly allows over-the-air broadcasts in-market and explicitly denies illegal, unlicensed global internet streams.

When your internet stream places a PHYSICAL antenna IN-MARKET that only you can access, then you have grounds to call your internet stream equivalent to Aereo. But the fact is, I rent a physical antenna from Aereo to enjoy local broadcast content, while you utilize a (likely foreign and obviously illegal) internet rebroadcast of licensed content.

The amount of cognitive dissonance it takes for you to dismiss basic licensing is fascinating.

Seems odd that you mention Aereo, since that's a whole company essentially doing a trick similar to OP, not exactly an NFL-approved content distribution system.

OTA is an approved content distribution system. How I choose to tune into OTA broadcast is my own business.

Sure, but it's not exactly a good example of the great lengths the NFL goes to provide content, since it wasn't intended

Which is why it was included in the same line as bunny ears HDTV, which captures 100% of what Aereo does and is free, and supported by the NFL.

Within a subset of the problem, this is a pretty accurate point, actually. I won't argue it! The reason I feel it's right in a larger sense is in protest of not having a reasonable way to consume the content for this guy. He's being denied service by policy even though he's a willing customer.

Yes, they can bar anyone from buying their product and place whatever restrictions they want. Those restrictions, however, are not fair. They can be wrong but within their rights. Protest is a fair way to express yourself. Not buying and doing without is also a form a protest which is fair as well. At least that's my opinion.

> The NFL has the _right_ to sell their content however they like, and they coordinate their blackout rules with the cable channels who pay for them.

No one is infringing on that right.

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

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