Associated Press – August 8, 2006:
Fantasy baseball leagues are allowed to use player names and statistics without licensing agreements because they are not the intellectual property of Major League Baseball, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Baseball and its players have no right to prevent the use of names and playing records, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler in St. Louis ruled in a 49-page summary judgment.
What idiot tried to do this? Baseball fans should be incensed.
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Too late…some of us are still peeved about the ’94 strike…
The wanted to stop the fantasy leagues so they could make some money by either licensing the name/states to “authorized” games (think EA’s MLB/NFL/NHL franchise, I can remember when they weren’t allowed to use team names or player stats) or making their own fantasy baseball games.
I think their fantasy baseball would simply be to have the same amount of people actually care about them again after the strikes and juicing going on currently. Does anyone really care if Bonds hits 751?
care? I wasn’t even aware he was close… Bonds?
American businesses greed knows no bounds. Then the lawyers get involved and make it worse. “Ownership” society my hiney.
Copyrighting facts has never been allowed. For instance, the fact that the Tigers have 76 wins is not something anyone can own. 😉
They should worry more about their steroid problem instead. O yeah, they don’t really care about that. What a joke.
Note that the case was handled in St. Louis, the most baseball friendly community on the planet.
I was a 162 game a year fan (indians fan, playoffs came and went)
Now i could care less. The major sports have no clue what the fans want or like. Hockey is close but its slowly going away.
When WWE is more attentive to thier fans then real sports thats bad.
At least they will ask thier fans “what do you like?” if a story isnt working and the fans dont like it then it goes away.
real sports- Hockey worked hard to win back fans. they cut prices and did everything they should to say hey we are sorry.
MLB after the strikes they have had didnt care what the fans thought.
NBA is a joke.
NFL acts like they care but i dont feel they really go out of the way for a fan. Maybe its changing for them since they see americas past time is nascar now instead of MLB and NFL wants in that action.
Andy
Of course noone cares about Bonds hitting 751. The record held by my all time hero is 755.
Brenden, Bonds is a fraud. His performance is artificially enhanced by steroids. He in no way should be considered for any record.
MLB knew that stats (facts) were not copywritable. Any putz that ever did business in the sports media arena knows this. They saw a window of opportunity, where the currently more business friendly court system might rule in their favor. There are so many groups that constantly barrage MLB, the NFL and other leagues with promotional ideas, they have evolved a methodology of throwing any and all crap that sounds like it might work into the marketplace to see what sticks. It was likely not very hard to make a business case for spending a couple of hundred thousand in legal fees, if that, on the outside chance they might get a ruling in their favor. The payoff for being able to charge media outlets for stats would have been a goldmine. Fantasy networks would have been just icing on the cake.
gquaglia – prove it.
Not that I’m a huge baseball or bonds fan, but seriously.. prove it. I’m sick of the sour grapes people seem to have about successful people (an in this case, him). It’s possible he used steroids, just like any other player on the field, but there is no proof.
Until there is then anything he achieves should be treated normally and with the respect it deserves.
#12 – Gregory – There is substantial proof that Bonds used Human Growth Hormone. His leaked testimony that he used the “clear” which was admitted to be a new HGH derivitive is 100% proof. The anxiallary proof is he achieved a HUGE amount of muscle mass in less than a single off season (extremely hard to due naturally, ask any serious weight lifter what is humanly possible in a short 4 month period), but HGH causes your bones to start to grow again (like a second puberty). Check out old pictures of Bonds and a 2001 picture of Bonds. His head blew up like a balloon! And to be clear, it is not possible to lift weights with your skull, so something else caused his noggin to explode.
#13 – Not true. It is possible for your head to increase in size as you continue to put on weight. The human body spreads the additional weight, almost proportionately.
You mean to tell me that even if you put on 30 lbs of muscle in 3 months, your head size wouldn’t increase? And that’s a possible weight gain too… Try it out before getting all critical.
Personally, I am not a Bonds fan. I think he can act like a real asshole sometimes…but you don’t need to lift weights with your skull or have to do any illegal substance to increase the size of your head if you’re putting on muscle weight.
chris, hockey close to what fans want, not with the new rules, infact after this year I will not be following hockey for 2 reasons, the new rules, I hate them. And my home team will be getting money from slots.
if the rules had not changed I would have picked a new team to follow, but the new rules, I HATE them so much that it has taken the fun out of watching hockey for me.
Interesting tangent on the MLB front – simultaneous with the legal activities to protect their information, they have been assembling one of the fastest database search / data warehouse systems ever designed. Hmmm… I wonder what they were planning to do with all of those ultra-fast queries?
WHY would anyone want to stop fantasy sports? Ignore the notion about player names and stats being public domain just for a moment.
It’s not like these players are loosing any money over the use of this information. And it’s not like fantasy sports organizations makes a whole lot of money…. do they? I’m no expert on this, but the only reason why ANY group of people will want to sue another group is because they want a cut of their profits, or they believe they are encroaching on their profits. Assuming there is any profit made off of fantasy sports. I highly doubt it.