Baseball Primer Newsblog

— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Bloomberg: No Fantasy; Major League Baseball Loses Data Ruling Major League Baseball lost a court ruling over player performance statistics, as a federal appeals court said companies that operate fantasy sports leagues have a First Amendment right to use such data for free. Writing for the Eighth Circuit panel (.pdf), Judge Arnold explained (citations omitted): The Supreme Court has directed that state law rights of publicity must be balanced against first amendment considerations, and here we conclude that the former must give way to the latter. First, the information used in CBC’s fantasy baseball games is all readily available in the public domain, and it would be strange law that a person would not have a first amendment right to use information that is available to everyone. It is true that CBC’s use of the information is meant to provide entertainment, but “[s]peech that entertains, like speech that informs, is protected by the First Amendment because ‘[t]he line between the informing and the entertaining is too elusive for the protection of that basic right.’” We also find no merit in the argument that CBC’s use of players’ names and information in its fantasy baseball games is not speech at all. We have held that “the pictures, graphic design, concept art, sounds, music, stories, and narrative present in video games” is speech entitled to first amendment protection. Padgett Login to Bookmark

Tags: fantasy baseball

Posted: October 16, 2007 at 06:11 PM | 104 comment(s) Tags: business — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand