MLB Gets Butt Kicked. Film at 11

A judge has ruled that fantasy baseball league operators do not need to pay MLB for licenses to use statistics.

A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday that the names and statistics of Major League Baseball players are part of the public domain and can be used at no cost by fantasy sports game operators.

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U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Ann L. Medler rejected arguments from Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association that
players' identities and statistics are the intellectual property of the league and the players, thus enabling them to make fantasy game operators pay licensing fees for using the information.

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"The undisputed facts establish that the names and playing records of (MLB) players as used in CBC's fantasy games are not copyrightable and, therefore, federal copyright law does not pre-empt the players' claimed right of publicity," wrote Medler in her 49-page ruling issued in St. Louis. Even if players have a claimed right of publicity, she added, "the First Amendment takes precedence over such a right."

Hooray for a sensible jurist! If baseball didn't publicize its results it would have no product. Before the Internet, we played using the box scores in newspapers; certainly it would be possible (if expensive) for smaller operators to hire (perhaps as a group) statistic gatherers, assign them season tickets, and simply get the stats themselves (double-checking with the official stats in the papers the following day).

Nice try, MLB. (And no, I'm still not paying for your online content (radio, or TV).

PSA

Richard Shindell is playing a free concert tonight at Madison Square Park (5th Ave and 23rd St, NYC). That will be a treat for the ears, and the weather's great. I plan to be there, with or without the kids (trying to find maya_a's mom, to see if she'll watch them; they might not be quite up to the show yet). Otherwise, it's family picnic time!