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Message: [QUOTE="IthacaMatt, post: 5122001, member: 405"] Scattershot initial observations, as I'm waiting for my dinner to cool: Right in Section 1(a), it says the grant of media rights persists for the duration of the term, regardless of whether the school remains part of the conference. (OOF!) The Conference owns all your events that are subject to the ESPN agreement. This would mean, to me, that it includes so-called minor sports like softball, lacrosse, etc. The Conference owns all copyrights in the works. Another OOF! The schools won't be able to repackage or delay broadcast or stream any of their content, because it all belongs to the league. If a member school doesn't participate in the ACC for some sports (hi, there, ND), then the non-ACC conference content is not owned by the league. The assignment of copyright is a big deal. Copyright includes the right to make derivative works - compilations, rebroadcasts, commemorative DVDs, etc. - as well as public performance rights. There are substantial statutory damages available to the league for willful infringement - $200K per episode. So let's say, for instance, if Florida State sold 50,000 DVDs of their undefeated season that led to this lawsuit, after they left the ACC, then the ACC could sue them for 50K x 200K in damages because they would be using video content that is owned by the ACC under this grant of rights. That is a lot of money for selling some swag. Cable and satellite is also covered under copyright law, and requires the consent of the rights holder to exploit in those media. Same is probably true of streaming under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. (Edit: Actually, streaming copyright law was just updated in 2020.) Section 6 states in plain language that the grant is irrevocable, whether or not a particular school remains in the conference. "We still own your games, and their revenue." Furthermore in Sec. 6, when the schools make their reps and warranties to comply with the conditions of the contract, they have to acknowledge that they have the capacity to make this agreement, and that it won't violate any other agreements of these universities. For State schools, this undermines government sovereignty type of arguments against use of state funds to pay a buy-out. "This doesn't violate any other agreement you may be party to, any law, statute, rule, regulation, court order" and so on. In Section 7, the schools agree that they must provide "reasonable access" to ESPN to broadcast games. So, if someone wanted to leave the conference for a new deal with Fox (Big 10), ESPN would still get to broadcast the games, and the ACC would still own them. There's no way out of this agreement. They didn't "over lawyer" it, and make it too long. When you do that, it can introduce ambiguities, which give the other side subject matter to argue about in court. Well done, ACC lawyers. [/QUOTE]

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