Premier League warns fans: Posting goal videos on Vine is breach of copyright law
The Premier League has warned fans against posting videos of goals on Vine and YouTube.
Fans harnessed the power of apps like Vine to share clips of last season's most memorable moments – such as Steven Gerrard's emotional on-pitch team talk or the same player's slip against Chelsea.
The trend continued throughout the World Cup this summer, however the Premier League has said they will crack down on the social media sharing of their goals as it is infringing on copyright laws.
Dan Johnson, director of communications at the Premier League, told the BBC:
You can understand that fans see something, they can capture it, they can share it, but ultimately is against the law.
It's a breach of copyright and we would discourage fans from doing it, we're developing technologies like gif crawlers, Vine Crawlers, working with Twitter to look to curtail this kind of activity.
Fans can now pause a live game, capture an exciting moment or goal, and upload it to the social media sharing website within seconds.
However, this seems to infringe on the ability of companies such as The Sun and The Times, which jointly paid around £20m for exclusive UK rights to host online Premier League highlights, to attract new customers.
The Premier League wants to continue attracting such large sums for their intellectual property, however fans' use of apps such as Vine to upload goals threatens the level of exclusivity they can offer potential buyers.
With the new Premier League season kicking off this weekend, we will soon find out if the Premier League's warnings have been heeded, while fans can expect to see this image make a regular appearance on their screen:
