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Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Does anyone know if the NFLPA, MLBPA, etc actually have any rights to their statistics? I know that the NFLPA has threatened many websites for using their stats and images for fantasy football purposes, but the only case law (in Florida) suggests that websites can't use their images, but doesn't mention statistics. Anyone?
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What is this, law school? The general rule is that databases that simply aggregate data in a fashion that does not constitute a unique expression (like a phone book or a list of baseball stats) is not protectable under the seminal
Feist decision by the Supreme Court. So that's good. However, there is a prominant case arising out of the Seventh Circuit,
ProCD v. somebody that held that the content of a database can be protected by contract, and that contract can be in the form of a shinkwrap (and presumably, clickwrap) license. So that's bad.
As to likenesses, the use for commercial purposes of a person's likeness is more or less prohibited in just about every state. If the circumstances are right, one can even shoehorn in a Federal Lanham Act Sec 47 (15 USC 1125) claim based on false endorsement or false advertising. There might be some question here as to whether the use is a commercial exploitation or a fair use for news reporting; I'd probably draw the line where it would be okay to show an action photo of whomever had a really good day today (with permission from the photographer, of course), but not necessarily stock photos of the players on the stat sheets. Although there is case law to support even the second use, for example, the case where the New Kids on the Block sued USA Today (don't remember the exact caption).
The real question is whether one is willing to roll the dice. If you are found out, you
will be sued, and the cost of defense ($500k-$1500k) will exceed the settlement offer (maybe $several hundred K), which will still be large enough to hurt most small e-businesses.
Standard legal advice over the internet disclaimers apply, even though we are (supposedly) all attorneys here: IAAL, BIANYL, ask counsel familiar with your local jursidiction, etc.
