Copyright, DMCA & Editorial Policy
How this site stays on the right side of the people who own the game — and what to do if you believe we've gotten something wrong.
Unofficial fan publication
Yinzer Wire is an unofficial, fan-run publication. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Pittsburgh Steelers, the National Football League (NFL), or any NFL club. “Pittsburgh Steelers,” “NFL,” and all team and player names appear in text for editorial identification only (nominative use). This site uses no Steelers, NFL, or team logos or marks as branding — black and gold are simply Pittsburgh colors, and the name and wordmark are our own.
What we publish
Everything published under the Yinzer Wire name is original commentary, analysis, and reporting written by this site. Facts are not copyrightable, and we build on them freely — scores, schedules, box scores, standings, injury designations, weather, and odds are facts. Expression is: we never copy another writer's article, a broadcaster's call, or a data provider's proprietary product. Our analytics are calculated by us from basic box-score facts; we do not republish proprietary analytics products such as PFF grades or NFL Next Gen Stats.
Where our data comes from
- Schedules, scores, box scores, standings, injury reports, broadcasts, odds, and the matchup predictor: ESPN — credited on each section that uses them.
- Game-day weather forecasts: Open-Meteo — credited on the weather card.
- Ticket listings: Vivid Seats, supplied through ESPN's ticket feed and credited on the tickets card.
- Beat Wire and offseason trackers: headlines and brief excerpts from the original publishers, always credited and always linked — we aggregate pointers to stories, never the stories themselves.
Photos and video
Photos appear on this site only when they are our own, properly licensed, or published on Wikimedia Commons with the photographer credited. We never use Getty, AP, Reuters, team, or other wire photography. Video appears only as an official embed — a YouTube, Vimeo, or X embed served by the rights holder's own player, which the rights holder can disable at any time. We never upload, re-host, or clip NFL broadcast footage. Every article and video the site publishes is checked against a copyright checklist before it goes live.
Names, marks, and branding
The site's branding is the name “Yinzer Wire” — “Yinzer” is Pittsburgh local slang, not a team mark — set as plain text in black and gold. No Steelers logo, Steelmark, Terrible Towel mark, NFL shield, or any club logo appears anywhere on the site, including the favicon; teams are identified by name and text abbreviation only. We sell no merchandise bearing team or player names, marks, or likenesses.
Takedown requests (DMCA)
If you own content that you believe appears here in error, we want to fix it fast — most issues are a mis-credit or an embed that should not have run, and we would rather pull first and talk second. Send a notice to the site owner identifying: (1) the copyrighted work, (2) the exact page URL where it appears, (3) your contact information, and (4) a good-faith statement that the use is unauthorized. A dedicated DMCA contact address will be published here as the publication grows; until then, notices go directly to the site owner.
- We review every notice promptly and remove or disable access to the identified material while it is assessed.
- If material was removed in error, the contributor may send a counter-notice and we will follow the DMCA's counter-notification process.
- Contributors who repeatedly publish infringing material lose publishing access.
Not legal advice
This policy is a plain-language statement of how the site operates, not legal advice. Trademark and copyright questions about a specific use are worth a real IP attorney's time.