Intellectual Property Law

NYT Editorial Supports Copyright Rationality in Sports

By Wendy Seltzer

The New York Times has a nice editorial today on the Supreme Court’s denial of cert to the MLB’s claims to own fantasy baseball. That leaves the case where the Eighth Circuit did, saying that fantasy leagues created around major-league baseball facts are fair game, not the property of MLB. Great to see a major new outlet weighing in against the expansionary claims:

In recent years, corporations have been aggressively pushing the bounds of intellectual property ? extending the length of copyrights to unreasonable lengths, for example, and patenting seeds. In the case of fantasy baseball, the courts have rightly cried foul.

The biggest fantasy in this case was Major League Baseball?s claim that its fans should pay to talk about the game.

In another editorial closer to home, Professor and Berkman Fellow Harry Lewis criticizes copyright’s encroachment on education and culture in the Harvard Crimson.

Full post as published by Legal Tags on June 05, 2008 (boomark / email).