With huge fantasy ramification overseas and potentially even in the United States, Britain’s High Court ruled that the schedules of the English Premier League are copyrighted materials and should be protected as such. The court ruled that since making the schedules was a very complicated activity that schedule makers should have the results of their laboring protected under British copyright law. The lawsuit was brought by the EPL against a subsidiary of Yahoo!, which printed the schedules without licensing the information from the EPL.
Fantasy English Premier League is one of the largest fantasy markets outside of the United States and is the most popular in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom. While it remains to be seen how this will be enforced in Britain, and if possible, in the United States, this should definitely be something of which anyone operating or playing in an EPL game should take note.
Hopefully, this is does not give the professional leagues in the United States a new angle to use to force fantasy leagues to license their games. After Major League Baseball lost its lawsuit against CDM Sports in 2007, the fantasy industry has been operating under the notion that fantasy leagues and the use of real statistics did not have to be licensed. However, the schedule argument could be a back door to bring the licensing issue back up. Imagine not being able to determine your starting lineup because your fantasy league service did not have the the upcoming schedules. Fantasy sites would be forced to pay the licensing fee (assuming they could get a license) to the leagues to include this small, but vital piece of information.
What are your thoughts on the ruling and potential ramifications?
3 Comments, Comment or Ping
Paul King
I think this is a non-issue. As you know, fantasy is a multi-billion dollar industry and when that kind of money is involved the parties usually find a way to make it work. If leagues try to capitalize on the ruling and restrict access to schedules a PR firestorm would ensue and in all likelihood the leagues would ultimately relent. Plus, I believe leagues recognize that they benefit from fantasy games with increased fan engagement that would likely not occur without fantasy.
May 3rd, 2010
Derrick Eckardt
While it could be a PR disaster, that does not mean that leagues would not restrict licenses to only those that it wanted to. That is exactly what MLB was doing prior to the court ruling.
For the big guys, like ESPN, CBS Sports, Yahoo, coming to an agreeable deal will likely happen. The real concern is the smaller guys who cannot afford a large licensing fee. A site that is only generating in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue could probably not afford a high dollar amount.
Also, it may be in a league’s financial interest to restrict even among the big sites. One site becomes the official free game, another one becomes the official high stakes game. The big sites can afford to pay out the licensing fees that the big guys would want.
The main point is if this kind of information is kept out of the public domain, it cannot be a good thing for the fantasy industry. It’s a moot point for us in the US right now, but can be very real for companies operating in the UK.
May 3rd, 2010
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