Yahoo sues NFL Players Union re: fantasy stats

The Mighty Men · Post by **The Mighty Men** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 4:26 am

Greg:

I read a small blurb today in the Chicago Sun-Times that Yahoo sued the NFL Player's Union yesterday over the right to use the player's stats without having to pay royalties. My reaction - Yeah!!

What, if anything, do you know about this?

[ June 04, 2009, 10:31 AM: Message edited by: The Mighty Men ]

The Mighty Men · Post by **The Mighty Men** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 4:30 am

I got the wrong player's union - NFL.

http://channels.isp.netscape.com/sports ... tm&sc=2020

Anyways, a ruling like this will certainly apply to any fantasy stats.

Time to fix my thread title.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:56 am

Originally posted by The Mighty Men:

Greg:

I read a small blurb today in the Chicago Sun-Times that Yahoo sued the NFL Player's Union yesterday over the right to use the player's stats without having to pay royalties. My reaction - Yeah!!

What, if anything, do you know about this? I posted this on the NFFC boards this morning. This came down yesterday and I read through the suit. Some of the surprising things is that Yahoo apparently still paid the NFLPA a licensing fee last year and despite all of the recent rulings NFLPA is threatening Yahoo with a lawsuit if they don't pay a licensing fee this year. Yahoo is asking for a declaratory judgement, basically stating that the law of the land already says the NFLPA doesn't own rights of publicity over stats used in fantasy games.

Anyway, here's what I wrote on the NFFC boards:

This isn't as big as you'd expect. Honestly, it's more of a surprise to many of us on the game operations side than anything else. The CDM case set the precedent that using statistics and names of professional players isn't infringing on their rights of publicity and thus the Players Associations can not ask for licensing fees. The original decision was upheld in the Eighth District and the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal. Then CBS sued the NFLPA and the CDM decision was again confirmed. The NFLPA is appealing the CBS decision, which shows you that they still feel they own rights of publicity on stats, photos, etc., involving fantasy games.

According to this suit, the NFLPA is still asking for a licensing fee for Yahoo's 2009 fantasy football game. In fact, they have threatened a suit over it. Yahoo is asking the court to decide whether they have to pay a licensing fee or not and from all past judgements you'd have to think that the precedent has been set in favor of the game operator. But maybe there's more in the contract between the two parties than we're seeing. Either way, this isn't the ground-breaking case to overturn CDM, but it's another example of the NFLPA still feeling that they have rights of publicity and that fantasy game operators need to pay them to use player names.

So it's another in a long line of deciding rights of publicity, which I think, has been decided already.

The Mighty Men · Post by **The Mighty Men** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 8:33 am

They can "feel" they are right and publicize that as much as they like, it doesn't change a thing.

Believe me, I've plenty of cases in which one side loses and refuses to accept that they have lost.

Thanks for the comments.