General

Fantasy Sports Aren’t Safe Yet

Sep 6, 2008, 5:15 PM UTC

As a nervous nation awaits its first full day of â†µdesperately searching the ticker for Marc Bulger’s yardage â†µand Sebastian Janikowski’s field goal total, there’s â†µmovement on the fight between sports league and fantasy â†µsports providers. As Eric Fisher of the SportsBusiness â†µJournal reports, CBS and the NFL Players Association â†µare going to court in a battle over pressure to â†µpay big licensing fees.
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â†µThe Supreme Court of the United States rejected hearing â†µMLB’s appeal last spring in which baseball argued â†µstatistics were not fair use under intellectual property â†µlaw. Basically, the highest court in the land has said â†µsports leagues can’t block fantasy sports. The NFLPA’s Andy â†µFeffer disagrees.â†µâ†µâ‡¥“We feel very strongly we retain intellectual â†µâ‡¥property rights in this area even after what happened at â†µâ‡¥the Supreme Court. I’m certain that anyone really looking â†µâ‡¥at the category doesn’t believe or think that [CDM] is the â†µâ‡¥law of the land or that this is completely â†µâ‡¥closed.”â†µâ†µReally, no one thinks that, except MLB (now), CBS, just â†µabout every journalist who wrote about the decision, most â†µlegal experts which get quoted in stories on the legality â†µof fantasy sports. Yes, the SCOTUS refusing to hear â†µbaseball’s case that stats constitute fair use and thus are â†µnot subject to licensing fees clearly means that with â†µregard to the NFL, stats are not fair use and fantasy â†µsports providers are subject to licensing fees.
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â†µFor the most popular sport in America, the NFL sure does â†µlike to insult its fans an awful lot.â†µ

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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