RE: The Rights of Major League Baseball

From: Agenbroad, James (Civ,ARL/CISD) <jagenbro[_at_]arl.army.mil>
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 15:40:34 -0500

The NFL has made similar claims and I think that both are wishful thinking. Copyright doesn't protect facts, just their creative selection and arrangement. I don't see any distinction between real-time description and box scores in the next days paper. They certainly have the right to prevent you from doing that if you're attending the game, as part of the contract to admit you. (fine print on the ticket) But if you're actually watching the game on TV, or listening on radio I don't see how they can claim that the actual facts of the game are part of a creative performance. Now, if the WWE (nee WWF) made such a claim they might have a leg to stand on.

-----Original Message-----
From: roberthelmer[_at_]charter.net [mailto:roberthelmer[_at_]charter.net] Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 8:36 PM
To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property Subject: [CNI-(C)] The Rights of Major League Baseball

Interesting article in Wired, at this link:

http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,61119,00.html

In my opinion, the following statement by MLB is just plain wrong:

"'If someone is communicating information about a game in real time, on
a pitch-by-pitch basis, that's an exhibition of that game," said Bob Bowman, the CEO of MLB Advanced Media. "There's no difference, in our eyes, between exhibiting a game using text and graphics and doing it on radio or television."

"Using that argument, MLB says that it is entitled to a license fee, or
that some other accommodation needs to be reached regarding gamecasts. What it is sure of is that anyone doing a gamecast needs to secure the rights to do so from MLB."

Any other opinions?

Thanks,

Bob Helmer

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Visit the CNI-COPYRIGHT e-mail list archive at <https://mail2.cni.org/Lists/CNI-COPYRIGHT/>. Received on Tue Dec 02 2003 - 01:40:34 GMT