Major League Baseball Deletes Popular MySpace Page For Using Cubs Logo
from the how-many-fans-can-we-alienate-this-week? dept
By now, it certainly shouldn't come as any surprise that Major League Baseball mis-interprets various intellectual property laws to pretend is has total control over certain content. After all, this is the organization that has insisted repeatedly that it owns facts, despite court after court explaining that facts aren't copyrightable. MLB also seems confused about copyright law when it comes to the legality of placeshifting. In the past, MLB also freaked out about fan websites potentially violating trademarks -- but that was a long time ago. Or so we thought. Apparently the fun lawyers at MLB shut down an immensely popular MySpace page for Chicago Cubs fans that was linked to a fan website called Cubbies Baseball. That fan website actually has a license to use the official Chicago Cubs logo, but MLB claims that the license didn't extend to MySpace as well -- just the Cubbies Baseball site. King Kaufman, the sports writer at Salon, blames MLB for not asking the owner of the site to remove the logo -- but puts more blame on MySpace for simply shutting down the site the second MLB complained, without giving any warning. He seems to think MLB isn't totally in the wrong in demanding the logo be removed, but again that's not necessarily true. If the site was clear that it was a fan site and had no official endorsement or association with the Cubs, it should be fair use to use the logo. MLB trots out the tired explanation that it has to defend its trademarks or risk losing them, but that's not so in a case where there's an obvious fair use exception. Either way, from a common sense standpoint, it's ridiculous for MySpace and MLB to shut down a vibrant fan community -- and it's made worse when you realize that the use of the logo probably isn't even a real violation of trademark law.
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The beatings will continue until
OR
MLB and RIAA will continue to sue, harass and otherwise irritate their customers until revenues increase.
Put these guys in with the old-style newspapers.
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Dear Author:
Or, in net-speak: Learn2rite n00b!
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Hm. Yeah.
Proving, once again, how damn intelligent the professional sports world is! =)
Next week, Mike "Dawg Killa" Vick's plea deal!
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Go figure
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Re: Dear Author:
Writing courses, above 8th grade (no insult intended from this), do teach that there are acceptable variations to the "standards" emphasized in lower grades. This includes lead-in sentences that, in this case, explain relavent past events that do constructively add to how informative the entire article is.
Not saying your writing "rules" are wrong. Just, try to get creative and interesting in your writing style rather than being a boring drone.
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Re: Dear Author:
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Those peskey fans shouldn't be allowed to use the logo for ANY reason!
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agree with GoblinJuice
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I agree..but it was legal
BUT that being said it actually is a pretty clear that if you use copyrighted images your account will be deleted. It says it right above the image upload button. So since Myspace doesn't self police for copyright violations it pretty much leaves the door wide open for tattle tale lawyers to pull the virtual trigger to get an account deleted.
What MLB should have done was messaged the account owner and tried to get an understanding in place where the account wouldn't get deleted. But hey, when was the last time you remember a bully saying "please."
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This begs the question...
Kind of like a certain movie studio forcing a lot of content off of YouTube when it didn't belong to them. I would think that the only thing the MLB could force offline would be the logo.
EtG
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Re: Dear Author:
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Cubs org had nothing to do with this
MLB somehow gets away with having a monopoly on the sport, and the thing about power is that it gets old fast unless you (ab)use it.
MLB needs a beatdown from DOJ.
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M:B are not the only ones
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Re: Dear Author:
You copied the Wikipedia definition essentially word for word and (wait for it) you neglected to provide the source citation!
"In non-fiction material, a paragraph starts with the main point, followed by sentences with supporting details. The non-fiction paragraph goes from the general to the specific to advance an argument or point of view. Each paragraph builds on what came before and lays the ground for what comes next. Paragraphs generally range two to eight sentences all combined in a single paragraphed statement."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph
Also, perhaps you are new here, but the writing style employed by Mike is more conversational than you are exposed to there in high school.
Finally, calling someone a 'n00b' is the best way to identify yourself as one.
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