Baseball strikes out again in battle over fantasy league's use of stats
By Eric Bangeman | Published: October 17, 2007 - 11:04AM CT
While the Colorado Rockies were making headlines with their march to the World Series, Major League Baseball was striking out in a St. Louis courtroom. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has upheld (PDF) a lower court's ruling that player names and stats are not copyrightable in a case that pitted a "renegade" fantasy sports operation against Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association
CBC Distribution and Marketing v. MLB dates back to near the beginning of the 2006 baseball season. CBC had licensed stats and player data from MLB for a decade, but MLB and the MLB Players Association decided to attempt to rein in the number of fantasy sports leagues, signing exclusive deals with larger fantasy sites like ESPN and Sportsline. CBC decided to press on with its own online offerings without MLB's blessing and was promptly sued.
MLB argued that its player names and stats were copyrightable and that CBC—or any other fantasy league—couldn't operate a fantasy baseball league without the blessing of MLB (and that blessing would come in the form of a multimillion-dollar licensing agreement). CBC countered that the data was in the public domain and as such, it had a First Amendment right to use it.
Rest here:Baseball strikes out again in battle over fantasy league's use of stats
By Eric Bangeman | Published: October 17, 2007 - 11:04AM CT
While the Colorado Rockies were making headlines with their march to the World Series, Major League Baseball was striking out in a St. Louis courtroom. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has upheld (PDF) a lower court's ruling that player names and stats are not copyrightable in a case that pitted a "renegade" fantasy sports operation against Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association
CBC Distribution and Marketing v. MLB dates back to near the beginning of the 2006 baseball season. CBC had licensed stats and player data from MLB for a decade, but MLB and the MLB Players Association decided to attempt to rein in the number of fantasy sports leagues, signing exclusive deals with larger fantasy sites like ESPN and Sportsline. CBC decided to press on with its own online offerings without MLB's blessing and was promptly sued.
MLB argued that its player names and stats were copyrightable and that CBC—or any other fantasy league—couldn't operate a fantasy baseball league without the blessing of MLB (and that blessing would come in the form of a multimillion-dollar licensing agreement). CBC countered that the data was in the public domain and as such, it had a First Amendment right to use it.
Rest here:Baseball strikes out again in battle over fantasy league's use of stats
