U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court Turns Down Fantasy Baseball Case
Posted Jun 2, 2008, 11:01 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case that asks whether fantasy baseball leagues have a First Amendment right to use the names and statistics of famous athletes.
The decision lets stand a ruling by the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said a fantasy league had a free speech right to use the information, the Associated Press reports.
“The information used in … fantasy baseball games is all readily available in the public domain, and it would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone,” the appeals court had said.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case could encourage other websites to incorporate the use famous people without getting their permission, the Los Angeles Times reported in a preview of the case. The story cites estimates that 15 million people spend about $1.5 billion a year playing fantasy sports.
The case is Major League Baseball Advanced Media v. C.B.C. It got some early notoriety on April 1, when a blogger reported as part of an April Fool’s joke that the court had accepted the case, but three justices recused themselves because of participation in fantasy leagues.
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