Rules online
 

Is this legal?
Rules & Resources

Probably not, so download while you can. :eek:

No, I don't think it's legal but I'd like to know how they got that pdf. I have been pestering NFHS/Arbiter to get a copy and they claim they don't have one other than the one available.

-Josh

;)

They went to the new format specifically because of sites like these. It's a shame because I love having the PDF copies to read on the train. Looks like I'll have to buy hard copies going forward and send them to 1dollarscan.com.

The NFHS website had PDF's for a few weeks when the new books came out. A few people downloaded them (legally) at that time.

Reason 352 I like working under NCAA rules better. :)

So pay the $35 a year and join the Fed. I've got pdf rule and case book copies loaded on work and home PC's. You'll also get some liability insurance coverage- $1 mil. I think.

While some have stated they can no longer access the Fed pdf's, I just pulled them up.

My SoCon & SAC cohorts had to download their NCAA books and most took them to be bound so I don't know how that makes the NCAA necessarily better.

HL, I am a member of the Fed Officials Association and I cannot access the PDFs anymore. Neither can numerous others that are members. The only access we have is through the Arbiter which does not have the PDFs anywhere.

My guess is some that have been members for a while longer still have access to the NFHS website.

It has nothing to do with paying and joining the Fed. I am a member of the NFHS officials association. The Fed has decided not to make the PDF copies available to members of the officials association anymore as referenced in the error message listed below.

While it's great that you are apparently a paid member of a NFHS professional association or state association staff, not all of us are.

-----------------------------------------------

Welcome to the NFHS Resource Library. The section provides online access to various NFHS publications. Note: The NFHS Rules Books and Case Books are available for paid members of the NFHS professional associations and state association staff.

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and view any PDF documents. Downloading and printing of this copyrighted material is prohibited. Click on the Acrobat Reader icon to download this free program.


ACCESS DENIED. YOU MUST BE LOGGED IN AND BE A MEMBER OF AN NFHS PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION OR STATE STAFF MEMBER.

NOTE: AS OF JANUARY 2011 MEMBERS OF THE NFHS OFFICIALS ASSOCIATION ARE TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE NFHS RULES CONTENT VIA THE NFHS/ARBITER HUB. THIS AREA IS LOCATED AT THE FOLLOWING URL...

HTTP://NFHS.ARBITERSPORTS.COM


NOTE: THE NFHS IS MOVING AWAY FROM MAKING PDF FILES AVAILABLE ONLINE. THIS IS DUE TO THE INCREASED ABUSE OF THE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. FAR TOO MANY LOCAL CHAPTERS AND GROUPS HAVE BEEN DISTRIBUTING THE PDF VERSIONS ONLINE. AS WE MOVE FORWARD ONLY ONLINE SEARCHABLE VERSIONS WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE.

Heaven forbid that people should get free access to rules materials.

What these chuckleheads don't understand is that I already get a rule book and case book every season. I just want it for my iPhone and iPad and in a format I can easily search.

John, thanks for the link.

good thing they aren't on Flash Player then.

I don't understand why Apple toys ( I have both an iPhone and iPad) can read Adobe PDFs but not watch Adobe Flash Videos.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/...-flash-iphone/

Simply because Steve Jobs thought of Flash as inferior and instead pushed HTML5.

As am I, which is what I mean when I say "join the Fed". Sorry that I didn't type it out exact and specific.

This topic got discussed earlier this season. Apparently there is some unknown and arbitrary differentiation that only the NFHS knows or doesn't. There are some members who can still access and some who can't and there have been several theories but none proven as there isn't a consistent sample.

However by joining the NFOA, does this not also access the online rules on the Arbiter? I realize that doesn't give one a printable format but at least an electronic one.

or Join


Southern Nevada Officials Association

PDF's aren't as hackable as Flash and are much less likely to run executable code.

Why else?

If it's a copy of Fed's football rules, then yes, it's legal.

Fed claims a copyright on their rule book, but that claim would never stand up in court considering that the great majority of the material in it was taken from public domain sources and is present in other governing bodies' football rule books. At best they might sustain a copyright on some short passages of Fed's original material, but there doesn't seem to be enough of that in the book to interest anybody.

I laugh at the way, for instance, the USFL copied NFL's contemporaneous rule book, altered just a few words in the whole thing, and slapped a copyright notice on it! A copyright notice doesn't make a piece of writing your property; it has to itself be original.

Fed didn't always even have a copyright notice on their rule book. I have a 1960 football rule book (NFSHSAA-NAIA-NJCAA Alliance) and it has no copyright notice. All the current USAn rule books originated from the product of a single rules committee, which used to be published by Spalding, which came under the control of the NCAA. NFL and Fed started with NCAA's, and started amending it separately. At some point somebody decided to slap a copyright notice on the front, but it's far too late for that to be effective. You think that by altering a few words at a time over many annual editions, you get to claim copyright over the whole thing? Don't make me laugh.

Copyright is meant to protect literary expression, not the conveyance of facts. Since rule books are useful articles and football is not a proprietary game, the language of the rules falls under a doctrine in copyright law that states, essentially, that if there's only one or a few ways to conveniently express certain information, you can't copyright the language used.

There's also the fact that Flash drains the battery on mobile devices and is a memory hog. Still, I wish I had the option to choose whether to view Flash content on my iDevices.

Exactly the reason I've tried to get a pdf copy, it's nice to be able to look things up easily. God forbid we have a question at halftime that we have ten minutes to look up, I can go to my phone and search a pdf easily but may not have internet (or a phone that can access the arbiter site).

BTW, the arbiter technical representative I talked with last week suggested I scan a copy of the book and put it into PDF when I pointed out that things are missing in the online version of the book (ie 8-man modifications for football). That's a nice cheap scanning method (1dollarscan.com), I might have to give it a try. Have you used them before

-Josh

You may think so, but I bet the Fed makes them take it down.

The problem is that usually those scans produce images rather than text PDF's: the image files are not searchable.

They have an OCR option that makes their PDF scans searchable and selectable. I haven't used them personally, but those I know who have speak highly of them.

How, do they send their goons? Heck, I've got a PDF of it; anybody here want me to host it at my Web site? If they ask BestWeb to take it down, I'll show BestWeb a copy of NCAA's rules and let them laugh along with me at Fed's copyright claim.

I'll bet you that BestWeb would pull the content faster than you can shake a stick. They are not going to risk their safe harbor under the DCMA based on your half baked legal theories.

ITS, HLinNC and I joined the NFHS Officials Association and have access to the pdf files. I have them saved on my computer for football, basketball and baseball and includes, RB, CB, OM and HB. I have no idea why you don't.

They will call the Nevada HS association and the state association will call the local association.

LOL!

Already did... that's my association until I move again.

They posted these as a resource for the officials, along with several other internal documents that we use frequently, which you can see at Rules & Resources

This is my first year doing football in Las Vegas, so I can't speak as to why or how the decision was made to do it this way. I just hope that NFHS sees the value of having these resources available and accepts that nobody is served by blocking making the games' rules more obscured. This is a case where it serves the interest of transparency of administration.
If their business model suffers from lack of rules book sales for things like this, then they're doing it wrong.
At the end of the day, however, some authorization should be received, if it's possible to get NFHS to respond/agree to it.

DMCA take-down notice. Pretty effective since it establishes a penalty per unauthorized distribution (counted as each time a file is transmitted from the server) and allows a 6-figure penalty per violation. It was intended to stop Napster-style copyright violations, but like many things congress has attempted, did little to curb online copyright infringement and made many other unrelated activities criminal.

But pretty ineffective against material that's already in the public domain.

From page 1 of the *.pdf file in question:

I think that's pretty clear. It's possible they got permission, and no one outside of that particular discussion would need to know.
Otherwise, it's still a copyrighted work. If the NFHS sends a DMCA takedown notice to the web-hosting company or ISP, and that company doesn't at least pass the word on, then there is serious litigation possibility at stake. At the end of the day, it's best to not screw with it unless you've got the documentation that proves you were given permission.
There is certainly a legitimate point that the rules may be public domain, but there's lots in there besides rules.

Tony, I wonder if officials in NC have some sort of special access through your state.

I've got a friend who's an intellectual property lawyer, plus another who's done some IP cases, and I'd love to make a case of it. If BestWeb's too chicken, I'd set up a server, but the bandwidth would be crazy low. Meanwhile if you want a copy of the PDF, I'll e-mail it.

I've got some other work on my site that should have priority, but gotta remember to put this in line for stuff to put up.

If NC does, I wish someone would share with me ...

I spoke with one of my partners who is more senior in my association. Permission to post this pdf file was obtained from NFHS prior to it being posted.

So to answer the OP, they followed the rules and used the mechanisms available. Yes, what you see is permissible because that exception in the copyright notice about requiring permission to duplicate the file was followed. Your association may be able to do something similar.

Well, there you go! Asked and answered!
Thanks, JCChamps

It appears they have pulled the rules and case books!

Rules & Resources

Told ya!

No. I signed up via the NFHS website, paid my $35, and had access.

I doubt that very much. And the fact that it's now been removed would pretty much prove that point.

I was the moderator on the NFHS discussion forum for several years. One thing I was told was they do not allow their rules publications to be published online by ANYONE, even state or local associations. In fact, this is the last year the NFHS will even publish pdf rule publications on their own website because of other sites downloading the publications and posting on their own site.

To my knowledge, every instance of any rule publication that has ever published online has been taken down when it came to the attention of the NFHS.

Just received an e-mail that the NFHS and Arbiter have just released the NFHS Basketball rules and case app for 2011-12 on the Android Market. iPhone & iPad to be released "soon". Other NFHS rules apps "will be coming later this year and into 2012".

That's intersting because when the new NFHS/Arbiter started up, I was able to get the Rules & Casebook online at their site.
By the traffic on the new site, I would have to say that at least for now the change has been a "bust". Especially because some of the old discussions will never be seen again.:(

I was just repeating what a more senior member of my organization told me. I'm not surprised at all that it got pulled. I just find it unfortunate that NFHS finds it necessary to obfuscate the game by making the rules more difficult to obtain.
I know that you can make the case that by ensuring that the only source is the official source, you prevent a certain amount of poisoning of the well. But from the perspective of someone who is just trying to know what the rules are in order to teach, learn, etc., they're trying to enforce a revenue source out of the books. There has got to be better ways to make money.
The smartphone app is cute, but I have a 4-year old phone and a 8-year old computer that can read pdf files. Seriously, why not just release the friggin' pdf's? Why does everyone have to use this smartphone golden hammer?

As I've already stated:

I also have access to the pdf files through the NFHS Arbiter site.

This is the last year they will release them in pdf form.

Feel free to email Mike Meenan at [email protected] and ask him.

If it is their organization's property, why should they allow every start-up youth league in America to copy off their rules for free and then addend at will?

Because that's how Fed got theirs!

Microsoft swiped an OS and then expanded on it and now claims it as theirs! :eek::eek:

No matter how they got it, like it or not, they have a copyright granted by the US Government and they can legally protect it. I'm quite sure the US Copyright Office and the lawyers for the NFHS are more educated on this matter than you are.

But if you feel that strongly, post them on your web server, send the NFHS the web address, hire your lawyer and let's see who wins! :D

What makes you think they registered? They just put a copyright notice on, which anyone is entitled to do. But that doesn't establish an actual copyright.

Uh, actually, yes it does.

If that were true, I could put a copyright notice on it too and establish another copyright. And so on.

In order for a copyright to exist on something, it has to be copyrightable, original to the claimant, and otherwise legal. But it's not illegal to put a copyright notice on something that turns out not be have a copyright.

Please do what Bktballref said then if you really think that.

BKB Rule App
 

Here is the info on the basketball app for android- looks pretty good.

Stay tuned, more sports to follow.

https://market.android.com/details?i...asketballbooks

I'm waiting for my friend the IP lawyer to reply, because I don't want it to get "cold" in case Fed acts as you say, I want to be ready to go right away. But if Chris takes too long to get back to me, I'll put it up anyway, because after this month Fed probably wouldn't care about this season's rules, and I want to make sure they have enough stake to want to defend it if they can.