The AFL World Wide Web Scandal!!
Ok, here's the story of the last week.... (the week of Aug 10th 1995)
On Wednesday a letter arrived at my house (I think it was Wednesday) which (based on my housemates and lifestyle) I didn't receive until I woke up at 3pm on Saturday afternoon (only about 8 hours sleep?). Anyway ... I woke up and was quite annoyed to read the mail. If you want to read it then I guess you can. I would prefer not to have it in my account or anywhere else, so here is a link to someone else's copy.
Hmmm... I soon worked out that it was a generic letter - basically all the crap about not being able to have marks and other things gave it away. I was annoyed but responded as they asked writing a letter and faxing it to the law firm on Monday morning (local time). I also removed all services for a short while... the following replaced my football page:
"This page has been temporarily suspended due to legal action imposed by
the Australia Football League. If you have any thoughts on this then
mail
me."
Oh, the message was a little larger - whatever. Basically a colleague and I decided to do something about this - there were all kinds of rumours over the net... we invested some time :-) Oh, a short thanks to the message I received concerning action - by the time I read it I was in the know, but thanks anyway... it read:
From: Kevin Lentin Subject: AFL Page Feedback Hi Wil, I was just reading Dag's footy home page (to which you have a link a and I suggest you have a read of his 'Something's Missing' link. Seemd the AFL have started throwing legal action around for people who use their logo etc. The most ridiculous thing about this though is that the AFL retain the rights to the draw and the results and it is illegal to publish who has or will play each other during a season. I suppose we have to guess where to go watch football on the weekend. NUTS I just thought that if you didn't know then you might be interested in knowing all this. You may choose to remove stuff or leave it there there or wait until the AFL come to you (unless you are paying them license fees already in which case ignore me. You might also be interested in calling the AFL and venting your anger (should you have any :-) I think I might - or maybe even call Mr Oakleigh on 3AW during the week. Just thought I'd drop you that note, great page BTW, Kevin.
We thought about contacting the media but decided against it. Instead we phoned Melbourne and found out what we were allowed to put on the net. After a discussion the following was added to my football page with most services retored - just a few words removed - i.e. those pertaining to fixtures. Ok... it's back!! After a deep phone conversation with some lawyer types I've sorted out some of the problems - it seems that they won't let me publish the fixtures, but simply the results.... hence the slight loss of information. Never mind. I'll write to them for the permissions - we should be back for good!!
That just about sums it up. The deal being that you cannot publish AFL fixtures publically without a license from the Australian Football Commission or some guys like that. Results of previous games and derivations of such are public knowledge and can be distributed as one pleases. So, we're back on line. We were happy and settled down to work.
But, the story does not end here (as you might already know!)
Today I was contacted by the press who were very interested to know what the deal was. They contacted me - out of the blue - just like that. Read the local paper in the morning for more information.
Ok, the saga continues (no this is not OJ) .... an article appeared in the local newspaper today (Thursday 17th August). It's very pleasant reading so have a look. I didn't really feel like copying the article and bruce did it for me. Here geoes...
Soon after I created this here Scandal page which is growing quite steadily. Soon I received the following mail. Many big thanks to the people who sent it!!
From: Scott Balson Subject: AFL Scandal Hi Wil, Well done mate, You have just made the global hero list... check out http://gwb.com.au/gwb/ in the next hour (ie EST 6:30pm)
This is way cool!! There exists a few other contenders to the page - like Fancois Pienaar who helped win the rugby world cup for South Africa, the Rainbow Warrior crew, The Lasiewicz Foundation (Convoy Bosnia) and Wil's AFL Page!! Hmmmm, spot the odd one out. Anyway, go and check it out...
Then what. I've had a few people chatting to be about the article. I think I was the last to read it having just had two all nighters - well close to that - whatever. Then came more media. Given the permission ABC radio national is coming to play tomorrow. They're going to talk to me and my invited quests (jason and bruce).
Ok, we now have the permission - pretty cool huh!
Ok ... more to write. Today (Friday 18th) Jason and I were been interviewed by Ross H (shit - I forget his name) for compiling a story for ABC national radio. The interview went pretty well. He was quite impressed by what we are offering the world and also interested in other web features such as lab spying and so forth. Actually while he was here you guys could have spied on us - we did .. here's the a shot randomly taking during the interview..... that's me looking silly on the right! I guess I was explaining something at the time. Oh, that's the interviewer on the left.
I now eagerly await the broadcast on monday morning. For anyone in Australia who is interested turn in and don't forget. Oh, ABC is in reference to the Australian (not American) Broadcasting Coperation. The frequency is 810 AM.
There's a new AFL page that's just hit the net - check it out. It's quite amusing.
Ok - the story has been on national radio - so far no feedback apart from freinds and local people - but that could be expected - who listens to ABC Radio National in the mornings? Anyway, I went to bed early (well sometime after 1am) and found myself awake at the unusual time of 6:30 - just to hear a preview of the story - I thought I'd missed the actual story. Jason woke at 5:45!! The story went to air about 8:15. Hmmm... it was about 8 minutes long and hasn't/won't be sampled unless lots of requests come in. I will transcribe the story soon.... the link will then be added. Sorry, not transcribed yet.
Oh, just off the subject check out windows - he was filmed from the spy camera at 4am this morning - isn't he wanderful. And how about that mercury cider!
I'll write more later...
To be continued .....
Well, it was about 9 years ago I wrote this page and now it's time for the story to continue.
Oh, by the way.... here's a summary of the latest statistics ... or you could get an up to date version.
** Done at the time of service suspension.
Total accesses: over 11000 (Tue 15th August)
Approximately 1500 accesses in the last ten days despite going off-line for many hours.
Number of different countries: 25
Country list: [at time of service suspension]
