Monday, June 2, 2008

Supreme Court to MLB: nice try dorkwads

High Court Rejects Fantasy Baseball Case

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 2, 2008; 2:20 PM

The Supreme Court today rejected a request to settle a dispute between Major League Baseball and fantasy baseball leagues that have grown rapidly on the Internet.

The justices, without comment, decided not to hear the appeal from baseball, leaving intact a lower court ruling that sports companies do not need the league's approval to use players' names and statistics.

The league said it and the players have the right to control the use of players' names in what the petition said has become a $1.5 billion fantasy sports industry. But lower courts said the Web sites had a First Amendment right to publish information about the players' performances on the field, just as the media do.

In fantasy leagues, participants "draft" players to form their own teams, and their success depends on the real-life performances of the players on the field.

2 comments:

Corms said...

I think that plutocrat something or other belongs in the tags.

k-mad said...

Got it (sorta). More or less.