Changes on the ground

Attempts to alter these copyright claims have yet to produce real change, but the sports leagues have been forced to alter some of nfl throwback jerseys
their behavior relating to copyright. Major League Baseball, for instance, has long claimed that fantasy sports leagues must take out a license in order to use real player names and stats—despite the "fact" that facts aren't copyrightable.

A St. Louis company, CBC Distribution and Marketing, refused to do so and ran some Internet fantasy sports games using real MLB data. Baseball sued, and lost in 2006 at the District Court level. In 2007, baseball lost at the Appeals Court level. In 2008, the Supreme Court refused to hear a further appeal, and CBC was vindicated.

The news was big enough to inspire a New York Times op-ed, in which the paper said, "In recent years, corporations have been aggressively pushing the bounds ofnfl jerseys
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."

That decision was bolstered by a 2009 ruling in which broadcaster CBS brought a similar lawsuit against the NFL Players' Association. The judge in that case agreed with the earlier CBC ruling and concluded that such facts were in the public domain.

And the NFL's decision to go after churches for offering Super Bowl broadcasts on big-screen TVs generated so much bad press that Congress even threatened to step in. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA, now D-PA) introduced S. 2591, a bill which singled out "professional football contests" and allowed nonprofit groups to show the games on any size screen.

The bill went nowhere, but the NFL did call an audible. In late 2008, the league announced that it was changing its ways and would no longer go after churches simply for using a 55+ inch screen.

Baseball and football both remain tenacious about defending their copyrights and trademarks, but they have to do so within an increasingly IP-savvy environment. People care about such issues more than they did a decade ago, and when they think the NFL is overreaching, the public outcry can be deafening.

When the NFL cracked down on sales of cheap nfl jerseys
"Who Dat" merchandise before the most recent Super Bowl, fans couldn't believe that the league was trying to horn in on their catchphrase. But, in this new media environment, the NFL also has some tools at its disposal. In this case, the league took to its own blog to explain that the NFL only cared about the phrase when it was used in conjunction with official Saints logos or other NFL trademarks.