Wpt Academy (tm)

[HarryDemetriou 0]

For anyone interested here's a link to the WPT press release on this subject.http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061011/law051.html?.v=76 I'm not sure whether to get angry or to be happy about this but I would tend to be more angry than happy (please note I can see benefits as well as drawbacks to this as a player).With The WPT struggling financially and the litigation by high profile players against them they obviously need to do whatever they can to generate revenue and profits.However is this overstepping the mark with regard to utilizing the final table players without giving them any compensation?In essence they are going to use all the final table hands (those shown and not shown) to teach fans how to improve their game and as a learning tool I think this will be very beneficial to a wide range of players of vastly differing abilities (ie from novice up to and including expert)I ask, however, is this right? Should the final table players get some financial compensation for this or have we all signed all rights away and just have to learn to accept and live wth it?I have often thought that anyone appearing on any televised final table should receive some kind of payment as compensation for showing their hole cards and the way they play. However to be honest you are not really giving too much away as a player when appearing at a final table in something like the WPT because so few hands are shown and because the poker bares very little resemblance to the poker played to get to the final table due to the blind/stack ratio pressures.Just thought this subject would make an interesting topic of discussion and would be interested to see how others viewed this including Daniel.PS I would have thought that they would have contacted a wide selection of final table players (if not all of them) and sought their views on this before proceeding with it. It's this kind of attitude that leads to lawsuits in the first place due to their inability to see that communicating and conversing with the players can only help them in the long run.

[Zach6668 513]

So they teach people how to play incredibly short stacked poker?I don't mind if players think they can play like the WPT FT pros...

[ricker 0]

I didn't know the WPT was struggling financially

[JMoney2681 0]

Most of the people that will actually buy this will just remember all the stuff like, "AQ suited? IM ALL IN!" And check raising with nothing. +EV if you ask me.

[fatman 1]

Legally, if the players that they are using signed that release form then they shouldn't have a problem with the WPT using this video. From a business and marketing standpoint I agree with Harry. The WPT was great because of the pro's that were playing. If all of the pro's stop playing because they think the WPT is going to be sharing more and more of the hands they play then the WPT will be worthless to watch. It is bad enough with the FT being an all-in fest but an all-in fest with a bunch of no names would really suck.

[theresa113 0]

Players need to decide if they are sports professionals or entertainers. Players can not be both. As a sports professional, showing the entire game is totally legit. Could you imagine players in the NBA saying you can show the ball going into the hoop only if I look good doing so and only on certain baskets? Even if the players decide that they are entertainers and not sport professionals, rights are limited on what is and is not shown. The only difference is royalties. Anyway, I think the players need to get together and decide exactly what category they fall under, unite and abide by the rules already establish for that profession. Just my very tired early in the morning 2 cents. BTW, glad to see you around again Harry.

[cu in 4years Dan 1]

im sick of seeing players ***** about this.they signed the release form, they should have known what they were and wernt entitled to demand from them, and deciding what goes public and what doenst is not one of them. they signed away that right and it is their own fault.hey they got royatlies in signing the form and winning didnt they?they have enough money from sponsors, final tables, cash games etc. peopel have to stop getting greedy and asking what is not theirs."mommy mommy i want my doll back!""but darling you said you didnt like it anymore and said that i could throw it in the dump"."i changed my mind go get it back for me!"same thing.

[aucu 3]

Getting into a grey area here, It does explose your FT pay far more than what the original concept of a TV show would.Only one player listed for the "with the pros" video segment actually made a FT in a non freeroll tournament, so I doudt there was mush pro consultation.It's just season 1 for now where more of the play was of a higher quality due to it being early in the "poker boom"To play nice they should have contacted the 13x6 players first, especially knowing that they are is court now and they are taking this into a different media.

[HarryDemetriou 0]

im sick of seeing players ***** about this.they signed the release form, they should have known what they were and wernt entitled to demand from them, and deciding what goes public and what doenst is not one of them. they signed away that right and it is their own fault.hey they got royatlies in signing the form and winning didnt they?they have enough money from sponsors, final tables, cash games etc. peopel have to stop getting greedy and asking what is not theirs."mommy mommy i want my doll back!""but darling you said you didnt like it anymore and said that i could throw it in the dump"."i changed my mind go get it back for me!"same thing.

I'm not sure why you're so annoyed about this because the important point I am making is that a line has to be drawn somewhere.If you hold a gun to my head and make me sign a piece of paper giving you permission to kill me it doesn't make it OK for you to do so.Just becasue I voted Republican doesn't give George Bush the right to say that I gave him permission to invade Iraq even though I elected him to represent me.And I am not sure what you mean by;"...hey they got royatlies in signing the form and winning didnt they?"The players paid all the money into the prize pool and nothing was added to the pool and the WPT and everyone else involved got paid for allowing us to play "OUR" tournament.Of course TV exposure has assisted with things like sponsorship but this is not the issue.In life such things as fair and unfair contracts exist and just because you sign a piece of paper it doesn't give the owner of that piece of paper free licence to do whatever they want. There is also the thing that the whole world seems to have forgotten about in this day and age of doing what is morally the right thing.I do not even know how they are going to use the hands from the WPT series One final tables and subsequent WPT series coverage but I would be suprised if there isn't some kind of fallout or backlash over this and it could all have possibly been avoided if there had been some kind of consultation with the players.Maybe I'm making much about nothing but these kind of issues need to be addressed.If memoruy serves me correctly the WSOP and/or WPT tried to use player images for their video poker games and there was a rather nasty reaction from the high profile players involved who had their images utilized even though they had all signed some kind of waiver or imaging rights release.There are many issues in poker that need to be addressed but this one of signing release forms appears to continually keep coming up time and time again.

[167-169 0]

Good to see Harry back, but with all due respect, "who are you?"Many pro's were a total "nobody" back then.Ask professional poker players in 2002 if this were to happen and that were to happen would they rather be a professional poker player in 2002 or 2006? Have their lives changed dramitically in the past 4 years? The answer is obvious.Show me a professional poker player that says he wants things to go back to the "good old days" and I'll show you a losing pro.So what if the WPT is using some footage that you were in, when the WPT first launched you were glad to sign the release and glad that the World Poker Tour has been established.It is cross selling, I'm sure some (not all) pro's are more than happy to have some air time.Everyone wants a little piece of the action, bitchabout this bitchabout that, Harrah's, WPT, "they are taking advantage of us players!!!" Jeezus! STFU. I'll be happy with just a fraction of these pro's bankroll.I thought A-list celebrities were whining too much, but WOW! Poker pro's that were grinding it out few years ago all of sudden expect the friggin world!

[HarryDemetriou 0]

Good to see Harry back, but with all due respect, "who are you?"Many pro's were a total "nobody" back then.Ask professional poker players in 2002 if this were to happen and that were to happen would they rather be a professional poker player in 2002 or 2006? Have their lives changed dramitically in the past 4 years? The answer is obvious.Show me a professional poker player that says he wants things to go back to the "good old days" and I'll show you a losing pro.So what if the WPT is using some footage that you were in, when the WPT first launched you were glad to sign the release and glad that the World Poker Tour has been established.It is cross selling, I'm sure some (not all) pro's are more than happy to have some air time.Everyone wants a little piece of the action, bitchabout this bitchabout that, Harrah's, WPT, "they are taking advantage of us players!!!" Jeezus! STFU. I'll be happy with just a fraction of these pro's bankroll.I thought A-list celebrities were whining too much, but WOW! Poker pro's that were grinding it out few years ago all of sudden expect the friggin world!

I'm not disputing that the development and growth of poker that has come about is directly a result of the WPT/WSOP/TV Coverage/Online Sites etc etc.But lets see who am I? Firstly I am not a pro player in the sense that it is not my primary source of income but rather a hobby which gives me great pleasure and which has given me substantial financial rewards and I who love the WPT events more than the rival ones. Next I would have to say that I am just an ordinary regular every day person but who is extremely outspoken on a number of subjects. As such I will question many things that affect me and the things I like to do and the way I wish to live my life which includes my playing of poker.My main "Gripe" about all this is not what they are actually doing but why they just decide unilaterally and suddenly to do it without informing anyone first (although they may have done so and I am not aware of it) and the fact that a line of what is acceptable exploitation/utilization of a persons image and what isn't needs to be drawn.My original post is about where the line should be drawn because there appears (to me at least) to be a very wide grey area as to what should and should not be acceptable and permissable according to the very unspecific and wide ranging terminology of the release forms.You talk of what happened at the onset and that nobody could envisage what would happen over the following few years but this is true of everything in life but it still does not give the WPT carte blanche to do anything they want with all the footage.Perhaps there should be contracts for individual series of WPT events and that as poker evolves so too should the contracts. When laws are passed they are often out of date centuries later and need to be amended to allow for modern times and thinking and perhaps poker can beneft by updating things as it has evolved.Golfers get appearance money because the top players attract the crowds but years ago I doubt they got paid to appear but now it's unlikely that any of them would turn up without some financial inducement but I do not believe that any golf course can use footage of a top player from their tournament to teach people how to play better golf without at least getting their permission first (and I bet they signed some waiver before playing but this is all guess work on my part).Times, conditions and circumstances change and as such everything needs to be reviewed lest they fall out of date. Now we are all more aware of how poker has progressed perhaps it is time to redraw the lines of what is acceptable or not.Getting more specifically back to the point of the WPT Academy I would have to say that if they show all the hands Daniel has played in series final tables along with all those that Gus Hansen played along with Phil Ivey then they are going to make a lot more sales of dvds etc than if they show all my hands as the former are all mega stars and I am not. The fact that the WPT may have helped those players become stars is not relevant when it comes to considering their extra exploitable value. If Gus Hansen became WSOP ME champion this year I'm sure the value of dvd's showing all the hands he played in series 1 WPT finals would go up but would it be fair for the WPT to capitalise without giving Gus something.(cf Ronald Regan made B movies but I bet those movies went up in value after he subsequently became president).If it were my company I would have approached those players and paid them to do voice overs describing what was going on in their minds as the hands were played and hopefully made even better instructional material in the hope that as a better product they would sell even more (despite the relatively miniscule extra costs incurred of giving somehting to those involved).

[psujohn 0]

I think this is most interesting because to this point the WPT has said "Sure the waiver gives us broad rights but we'll never use them" and now they're using them. If WPT just makes a video that uses already broadcast hands to teach lesson (with instructional commentary) I don't think players would be too upset but by going back and using hands that never made it to air WPT is certainly overstepping the bounds of what players would have expected them to do with the footage. Perhaps more importantly though this will certainly negatively impact the players. If someone walks into a store intending to buy Daniels DVD and see's next to it a WPT DVD with DN on the cover it will certainly hurt his sales. Equally it will hurt a player's opportunity to sign an exclusive deal with a producer if they're already appearing on another DVD.I'm not sure why there's such backlash against pros complaining about the use that WPT makes of their image/footage. Sure WPT has helped grow poker and has helped big names make money in poker related business but what other industry (sport or entertainment wise) gets people to appear on their TV show for free? Even Funniest Home Videos gives prizes to people.

[No_Neck 0]

Don't listen to the trolls Harry great post.

[mrdannyg 274]

I guess this is exactly what Harry and the lawsuit guys were worried about. A slippery slope resulting from the WPT having such full control over the player's rights. I bet most players would not have seen this coming, so what's next?The WPT could just film every table, and then take each player's tournament, package it up, and sell it as a strategy tape, on how to beat that player. Actually, that's a pretty good idea. Take every hand that player X plays in a tournament, and show how he plays it. Throw in some 'expert analysis' from Lederer or Sexton or someone, and sell the tape.Maybe they wouldn't do that, but they certainly can. And who knows what financial difficulties will push them to.

[nutzbuster 7]

Perhaps there should be contracts for individual series of WPT events and that as poker evolves so too should the contracts. When laws are passed they are often out of date centuries later and need to be amended to allow for modern times and thinking and perhaps poker can beneft by updating things as it has evolved.Golfers get appearance money because the top players attract the crowds but years ago I doubt they got paid to appear but now it's unlikely that any of them would turn up without some financial inducement but I do not believe that any golf course can use footage of a top player from their tournament to teach people how to play better golf without at least getting their permission first (and I bet they signed some waiver before playing but this is all guess work on my part).Times, conditions and circumstances change and as such everything needs to be reviewed lest they fall out of date. Now we are all more aware of how poker has progressed perhaps it is time to redraw the lines of what is acceptable or not.

This is a such a key point Harry, I agree totally.Imagine a movie studio saying to Brad Pitt or Jack Nicholson "well...you shouldn't complain because years ago no one knew who you were, so we are not going to pay you now". An extreme example but you get the idea. It's absurd.Same thing here. Yes the pros were unknown at one point, but not anymore. I can see both sides here. WPT has gone a long way towards giving the pros "rock star status" but at the same time they do not own them and should respect their concerns to a degree. If they would just, as you say Harry, show some moral foritude and negociate and/or re-negociate in good faith, all will win in the long run.Not doing so...strong arming or changing the rules after the fact without warning could indeed result in the pros protesting and leaving. And what we would end up with are events showcasing un knowns.... and few of us will want to watch that kind of poker.The poker stars are the poker stars, PERIOD. Who they were prior to the boom is irrelavent. They are here now to stay, and they should be treated and compensated accordingly, just like any other star or top athlete is compensated. I just hope they can find reasonable solutions to any disputes and keep ti out of the damm courts.

[Dirk17 0]

Harry just to clear up your point about golfers. PGA events cannont pay golfers appearance fees to show up. If Tiger plays the Buick open he doesn't get a couple hunderd grand just to show up. In fact a couple of years ago the PGA banned players from taking money to play in pro-ams in the days before a tournament, as many of the top players were getting around the appearance fee rule by getting a fee for playing in the pro-am. Now when they go play overseas in Asia and play Asian Tour (and some Euro Tour) events at say the Dubai Classic, different story. Most of the big names get major money for an appearance fee to play there, I know Tiger gets upward of 1-2 Million for a couple of his tourneys.Just my 2 cents.DK

[HarryDemetriou 0]

Harry just to clear up your point about golfers. PGA events cannont pay golfers appearance fees to show up. If Tiger plays the Buick open he doesn't get a couple hunderd grand just to show up. In fact a couple of years ago the PGA banned players from taking money to play in pro-ams in the days before a tournament, as many of the top players were getting around the appearance fee rule by getting a fee for playing in the pro-am. Now when they go play overseas in Asia and play Asian Tour (and some Euro Tour) events at say the Dubai Classic, different story. Most of the big names get major money for an appearance fee to play there, I know Tiger gets upward of 1-2 Million for a couple of his tourneys.Just my 2 cents.DK

Wasn't totall clear about the payments to golfers but there was a big stink over here in Europe a few years back about certain players refusing to play unless paid for appearing and that included some of the BIG tourneys.Thanks for clearing that up.Do you know if they sign image release forms giving carte blanche to the golf course/tv company/PGA whenever they play that they can use their image to make videos on golf etc etc and sell them without the players permission?

[Dirk17 0]

Your probably right about European tour events, I'm not sure if they are allowed to pay appearance fees or not any more. I know they used to be able to and probably still are, however I no longer work for the PGA tour so I'm not so familiar.As for the release players sign. They don't sign individual releases at each tournament, but a general release to become part of the players association and another to get their PGA tour card each year. As to what rights this gives up, I'm really not sure. I've haven't seen these in many years, and I've never seen a WPT release so I don't think I could comment on their similarities or differences.DK

[Balloon guy 158]

Just because I voted Republican doesn't give George Bush the right to say that I gave him permission to invade Iraq even though I elected him to represent me.

Actually it does , but I'm just having fun.I do think it is interesting that the WPT would do this just as the lawsuit comes out. A real in your face move to announce that Hey, we are going to do exactly what the guys in the lawsuit said we were going to do, use their images to make money without giving them any. Not a real good legal team over at the WPT.I think the hollywood analogy is a good one here. Originally the studios 'owned' the movie stars, they got paid dirt and contracts were very strong. Then the stars got bigger and the industry changed.These are growing pains for the poker industry. Harry and others like him are going to have to fight the battles that future poker players will benefit from.Thanks Harry.and THANKS for voting Republican

[mk 11]

I've always kind of understood Seidel's original distaste for pinhole cameras. This is just taking it a step further. I agree that a line needs to be drawn. I'm interested to hear Daniel's thoughts on the matter.

[mrdannyg 274]

I've always kind of understood Seidel's original distaste for pinhole cameras. This is just taking it a step further. I agree that a line needs to be drawn. I'm interested to hear Daniel's thoughts on the matter.

fanboy

[pokerfan1080 0]

I think DN has made his thoughts very clear about these issues.....If anything is to be done, it's not through the current lawsuit. The players need to unite and address it together.Maybe it's just me, but it seems simple enough.

[JMoney2681 0]

I think Harry is on to something. People are making BILLIONS...yes BILLIONS of dollars off of us poker players and what do we get in return? Sure if we win or cash in the top 6 we have a nice pay day, but for WPT to seemingly "use" the poker players, it seems kind of wrong. I understand both sides, but places like Party Poker worth billions, and they don't even offer rakeback or very good deposit bonuses? It is stuff like this that makes me mad. Them taking advantage of us poker players. Of course we choose to play the game, but for them to be making billions off of us while we just sit back and do absolutely nothing isn't right. We should be saying, "Hey, this should be a give and take relationship." We need to get something back from all of this, and sometimes I feel that companies like the WPT are taking advantage.

[qyayqi 11]

if i recall correctly, pokerstars had some freerolls into wsop seats. this is at least a start as far as giving something back.

[mrdannyg 274]

I think Harry is on to something. People are making BILLIONS...yes BILLIONS of dollars off of us poker players and what do we get in return? Sure if we win or cash in the top 6 we have a nice pay day, but for WPT to seemingly "use" the poker players, it seems kind of wrong. I understand both sides, but places like Party Poker worth billions, and they don't even offer rakeback or very good deposit bonuses? It is stuff like this that makes me mad. Them taking advantage of us poker players. Of course we choose to play the game, but for them to be making billions off of us while we just sit back and do absolutely nothing isn't right. We should be saying, "Hey, this should be a give and take relationship." We need to get something back from all of this, and sometimes I feel that companies like the WPT are taking advantage.

the WPT is not making billions, or even millions, off of poker players. in fact, they've lost money.