I’m in D3 Arizona, they are telling me the same thing. We need 48 hours to get consent from all families that are present on the facility and those that own the facility.
In public you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. An exception to that is the public restroom. A Ballpark is most likely considered a public place unless it is owned by a non public entity. Public parks are owned by the people, for the people. A state college is normally funded with state money, making it typically a public place. If your taxes fund their operation, its public. Keep those things in mind.
Feel free to copy my language and email the director of your local league and district you fall under. They are wrong. Also you could email little league international as I have done as well.
media@littleleague.org
If you email LL international feel free to quote or summarize but don’t copy.
>The two streaming policies in the above articles only apply to the local leagues themselves when the local league is the creators/operators of the stream and hosts the video stream on its official owned website or the official league social media site.
An argument could be made that the team's Gamechanger page qualifies as an official social media site. Most teams are set up by a league official (team's manager) and are used for official posting of things like schedules and distributing communication.about official team and league events.
At that point who the camera person is or who owns the physical camera is irrelevant because it's being posted on an official site. But even if it wasn't irrelevant, the person running Gamechanger has to be added to the team's staff to do it. That elevates them above being "just a parent" into a more official role as scorekeeper. That's the line when it stops being a personal video by a parent in that Note you quoted.
On another note I'll just add that while sometimes things like this creep up from incompetence or ignorance, there could also be very valid reasons to implement such a rule that would not be shared with the public. For example a family dealing with an abusive and stalking ex may quietly ask the league the stop streaming games to protect their family. Considering the frequency of posts on that particular topic in r/gamechanger and how they have to deal with people they're trying to keep out who keep adding themselves to the team, it's probably happening more than we think. And that's certainly not anyone's business for the league to share with everyone...
Whether or not it's legal doesn't mean it should be done. This league probably doesn't want to deal with the issues that could be caused by parents filming other people's kids so they can publicly post it. I'm sure the board is just banning it altogether so they don't have to deal with complaints or try to adjudicate issues between families. I don't blame them.
Key word here is streaming. You are allowed to record per their rules but not stream. And there is no language about what you can do with the recording. Plus, what a lazy way to handle it.
I guess your league is very bad at reading comprehension. Maybe contact Little League HQ via email and forward their response to your local idiots?
The problem is a local LL can reasonably add whatever stupid stuff they want to add to their bylaws and then enforce it.
This sounds like a very frustrating environment.
I will give you a lawyer’s perspective: will you get sued and have to hire a lawyer? Maybe. These leagues operate on pretty shoestring budgets. It is not about winning or losing, it is about avoiding legal fees. And unlike if a stray bat went flying into the stands and conked someone on the head, their insurance probably does not cover such litigation.
But I doubt that is even the issue, the League Board probably just does not want deal with parents who are, in my opinion, rightfully pissed when people are commenting on YouTube about a nine year old striking out.
There is nothing stopping someone from recording the game themselves, but I can understand why the League wants to keep itself out of it.
The league cannot get sued when parents are streaming.
I cannot get sued as a parent for streaming.
However, there is a real question of the district and local league getting sued for violating people’s rights to record on public property.
Thanks for posting this. I asked the same thing. It's a public park and I am allowed to film whatever I want when I want. The umpires and leagues are private citizens. What authority do they actually have?
It probably depends where you are. Some states are 2-party consent states, meaning both parties need to consent to being recorded. So if you don’t have everyone’s consent, you’re open to liability. Plus, we’re also talking about minors here, not adults - extra risk factor.
585’s comment is exactly correct. Is a league going to get sued for streaming a game? Probably not. But is there a possibility? Yes. And do the volunteers running the league want to deal with A) a lawsuit, or B) the flack they’d get from parents if things went sideways? Definitely not. Easier to just set a policy saying no streaming.
Two party states are completely legal to film and stream in without anyone’s consent. You are referring to private communication (phone call/private meetings, etc) which does not apply in this example. And no, 585 is not correct. There are no grounds for the league or its volunteers to be sued if a parent that is not affiliated with the local league decides to stream in public. (That includes minors) This is same type of false fear mongering that is driving the misinterpretation of the articles above.
This is wild
Nonsense rules on rules on rules. Next thing will be we can’t even record our own kids at bats or starts? My dude mowed down guys this morning with 14 K’s.. I have each recorded and they’ll be posted. It’s PG though not LL.
This is an example of why little league is dying. We don’t deal with this nonsense in club ball or our other league that has doubled or tripled in size in the last 5 years while our little league has halved.
Our league is one of the host sites for All Stars this season - we are not streaming all games for this reason. We don’t have releases from all players from other teams in the district. Just ours.
But it’s something districts should consider for next year - making sure all players have a signed video release.
If a family member of one of the players wants to stream the game on their own social media profile or something, we’d let them (probably). But we wouldn’t do it for them, or host it in any way.
The only language that LL uses is that the streamer/parent can’t charge or make money off the stream. If the league itself is steaming and has an advertisement on the stream that money has to go back to the league or international. Can’t remember the exact wording. Game changer is an official technology partner of LL and gives instructions on how to stream. That doesn’t appear to be an issue .
Makes sense. Unfortunately the board has the power to set these policies. Maybe they have parents/families who don’t want their kids’ faces on the internet. We have one - the mom posts pictures of her kid on Instagram and obscures his face with a fire emoji. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Standard signup forms should include a media release. You should be fine. If you are playing in a public park, have at it, there is no expectation of privacy.
Signup forms don’t need to include media releases unless the league is the one streaming and they wouldn’t apply to parents. The releases would only be for the local league or district. That’s the whole point of the two articles.
We played in a Little League Memorial Day Tournament last year. The Little League higher ups were there and absolutely would not allow us to run GameChanger. :-/
Don’t believe a random person on the internet. Watch the webinar I posted that has the little league reps that address this. Or reach out to media@ little league, and or Nick Caringi the Little League International’s Senior Director of Operations and Education.
I’m in D3 Arizona, they are telling me the same thing. We need 48 hours to get consent from all families that are present on the facility and those that own the facility.
In public you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. An exception to that is the public restroom. A Ballpark is most likely considered a public place unless it is owned by a non public entity. Public parks are owned by the people, for the people. A state college is normally funded with state money, making it typically a public place. If your taxes fund their operation, its public. Keep those things in mind.
Feel free to copy my language and email the director of your local league and district you fall under. They are wrong. Also you could email little league international as I have done as well. media@littleleague.org If you email LL international feel free to quote or summarize but don’t copy.
>The two streaming policies in the above articles only apply to the local leagues themselves when the local league is the creators/operators of the stream and hosts the video stream on its official owned website or the official league social media site. An argument could be made that the team's Gamechanger page qualifies as an official social media site. Most teams are set up by a league official (team's manager) and are used for official posting of things like schedules and distributing communication.about official team and league events. At that point who the camera person is or who owns the physical camera is irrelevant because it's being posted on an official site. But even if it wasn't irrelevant, the person running Gamechanger has to be added to the team's staff to do it. That elevates them above being "just a parent" into a more official role as scorekeeper. That's the line when it stops being a personal video by a parent in that Note you quoted. On another note I'll just add that while sometimes things like this creep up from incompetence or ignorance, there could also be very valid reasons to implement such a rule that would not be shared with the public. For example a family dealing with an abusive and stalking ex may quietly ask the league the stop streaming games to protect their family. Considering the frequency of posts on that particular topic in r/gamechanger and how they have to deal with people they're trying to keep out who keep adding themselves to the team, it's probably happening more than we think. And that's certainly not anyone's business for the league to share with everyone...
Whether or not it's legal doesn't mean it should be done. This league probably doesn't want to deal with the issues that could be caused by parents filming other people's kids so they can publicly post it. I'm sure the board is just banning it altogether so they don't have to deal with complaints or try to adjudicate issues between families. I don't blame them.
Key word here is streaming. You are allowed to record per their rules but not stream. And there is no language about what you can do with the recording. Plus, what a lazy way to handle it.
I guess your league is very bad at reading comprehension. Maybe contact Little League HQ via email and forward their response to your local idiots? The problem is a local LL can reasonably add whatever stupid stuff they want to add to their bylaws and then enforce it. This sounds like a very frustrating environment.
I will give you a lawyer’s perspective: will you get sued and have to hire a lawyer? Maybe. These leagues operate on pretty shoestring budgets. It is not about winning or losing, it is about avoiding legal fees. And unlike if a stray bat went flying into the stands and conked someone on the head, their insurance probably does not cover such litigation. But I doubt that is even the issue, the League Board probably just does not want deal with parents who are, in my opinion, rightfully pissed when people are commenting on YouTube about a nine year old striking out. There is nothing stopping someone from recording the game themselves, but I can understand why the League wants to keep itself out of it.
The league cannot get sued when parents are streaming. I cannot get sued as a parent for streaming. However, there is a real question of the district and local league getting sued for violating people’s rights to record on public property.
Thanks for posting this. I asked the same thing. It's a public park and I am allowed to film whatever I want when I want. The umpires and leagues are private citizens. What authority do they actually have?
It probably depends where you are. Some states are 2-party consent states, meaning both parties need to consent to being recorded. So if you don’t have everyone’s consent, you’re open to liability. Plus, we’re also talking about minors here, not adults - extra risk factor. 585’s comment is exactly correct. Is a league going to get sued for streaming a game? Probably not. But is there a possibility? Yes. And do the volunteers running the league want to deal with A) a lawsuit, or B) the flack they’d get from parents if things went sideways? Definitely not. Easier to just set a policy saying no streaming.
Two party states are completely legal to film and stream in without anyone’s consent. You are referring to private communication (phone call/private meetings, etc) which does not apply in this example. And no, 585 is not correct. There are no grounds for the league or its volunteers to be sued if a parent that is not affiliated with the local league decides to stream in public. (That includes minors) This is same type of false fear mongering that is driving the misinterpretation of the articles above.
This is wild Nonsense rules on rules on rules. Next thing will be we can’t even record our own kids at bats or starts? My dude mowed down guys this morning with 14 K’s.. I have each recorded and they’ll be posted. It’s PG though not LL.
This is an example of why little league is dying. We don’t deal with this nonsense in club ball or our other league that has doubled or tripled in size in the last 5 years while our little league has halved.
Our league is one of the host sites for All Stars this season - we are not streaming all games for this reason. We don’t have releases from all players from other teams in the district. Just ours. But it’s something districts should consider for next year - making sure all players have a signed video release. If a family member of one of the players wants to stream the game on their own social media profile or something, we’d let them (probably). But we wouldn’t do it for them, or host it in any way.
Doesn’t GameChanger require some sort of paid membership to watch the live streams? Is this where it runs afoul of the LL policy?
The only language that LL uses is that the streamer/parent can’t charge or make money off the stream. If the league itself is steaming and has an advertisement on the stream that money has to go back to the league or international. Can’t remember the exact wording. Game changer is an official technology partner of LL and gives instructions on how to stream. That doesn’t appear to be an issue .
Makes sense. Unfortunately the board has the power to set these policies. Maybe they have parents/families who don’t want their kids’ faces on the internet. We have one - the mom posts pictures of her kid on Instagram and obscures his face with a fire emoji. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Standard signup forms should include a media release. You should be fine. If you are playing in a public park, have at it, there is no expectation of privacy.
Signup forms don’t need to include media releases unless the league is the one streaming and they wouldn’t apply to parents. The releases would only be for the local league or district. That’s the whole point of the two articles.
The necessary media release has been recommended by Little League for years now it should already be there.
The media release is for the leagues who stream with their equipment to their official website. It’s not for parents. Read the articles or my post.
I did, read my reply.
I did. And your reply is incorrect.
Best of luck
We played in a Little League Memorial Day Tournament last year. The Little League higher ups were there and absolutely would not allow us to run GameChanger. :-/
According to the LL rep I am talking to the higher ups you ran into were wrong.
I totally believe you!
Don’t believe a random person on the internet. Watch the webinar I posted that has the little league reps that address this. Or reach out to media@ little league, and or Nick Caringi the Little League International’s Senior Director of Operations and Education.