CBS Goes To Court To Let The NFL Know That You Can't Copyright Player Stats
from the and-it's-correct dept
Over the past few years, there have been a series of lawsuits concerning whether or not fantasy baseball operators need to license player info from Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball lost at every level and an eventual appeal to the Supreme Court was turned down. However, it appears that the National Football League wanted to ignore these rulings, and has still been trying to get fantasy sports sites to pony up to use stats and player info -- despite the fact that you cannot copyright facts. CBS is now challenging the NFL on this, and has gone to court to get a declaratory judgment that it doesn't need a license. It's difficult to see this case turning out any differently than the MLB cases, considering the facts of the case are almost identical.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: facts, fantasy football, football, sports, stats
Companies: cbs, mlb, nfl
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the NFL
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Its
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they can
But what they can't copyright is fact.
Even if a movie is copyrighted, i can say "actor X spoke Y lines and had 56 minutes of face time on screen"
That's a fact, and it can't be copyrighted.
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What A Coincidence
I can't think of a $ingle Rea$on.
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The new sports report - the ideal revision
No mention of scores, teams, outcomes, cities or anything. Nothing even that it was football. See how long the season will be then.
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what we need
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re: what we need
Rape
Patents
DMCA takedowns
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Re: they can
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CBS is Big
Mike keeps saying that facts cannot be copyrighted (with good reason), but wouldn't it be a surprise to get a judge that thinks otherwise? If the NFL didn't have a game, the facts wouldn't exist. Therefore, since the NFL teams/player "created" the facts, they own the rights to said facts.
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Re: Re: they can
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Its all about the fans
When the announced the new stadium was being built, I had hoped to finally get the chance to buy season tickets to see the Cowboys play. Damn was I wrong, even if I could afford $400 per seat per game there is no chance in hell of paying the $16000 per seat for the privilage..
What he has done for me is turn me against the game completely and now I won't even watch the cowboys on TV.
I hope the NFL dies and burns in hell, it's lost grasp of the fact that the fans built the game long ago.
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Re: CBS is Big
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Godwin's law has been invoked
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Just the facts
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Re: Its all about the fans
I thought people here were about free market.
Seats are a scarce good, they are being sold at a price people are willing to pay (not a price YOU are willing to pay).
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Re: What A Coincidence
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I am suing the NFL
also, the USA was a nation before there was an NFL and therefore has copyright...
this should be a profitable sort of lawsuit... next up... NBA, NHL, NBC, ...skies the limit... tee hee...
...not that I'm a lawyer or another of the lifeforms parasiting off the body economic
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Copyright plays? What about maneuvers?
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Re: Copyright plays? What about maneuvers?
QB X threw 13/18 for 151 yards and a TD is a fact, not an idea, and cannot be copyrighted.
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Re: they can
What made this case so difficult is that while a lexicon is a compilation of facts, and you can't copyright facts, Rowling's books are invented facts, hence original and inventive. So a compilation of her invented facts isn't the same as a compilation of facts about World War I or Elvis, or any other actual event or person.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080909014304275
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Re: re: what we need
Rape"
To knowingly make a false rape report is already a crime and a pretty serious one.
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