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Who Owns Baseball Statistics?
Class Act Dynamo writes "A sports fantasy league company has asked a federal court to decided whether baseball statistics belong in the public domain as history or are the property of major league baseball. Basically, they had been licensing the statistics for nine cents (US) per gross from the Major League Baseball Players Association. But MLB recently bought the rights to be the sole licensor and has refused to renew the license of the fantasy league company. From the article: 'Major League Baseball has claimed that intellectual property law makes it illegal for fantasy league operators to commercially exploit the identities and statistical profiles of big league players.' What does the Slashdot community think? Shoud Barry Bonds' record 73 single season homeruns be in the public domain, or should I worry about having to pay royalties for the first part of this compound sentence?"
This is similar to the *AA wanting to own any data produced, more importantly, charge for the use of that data. Comoditization of data is the first step down a long path to total corruption. Now, that was a lot to say in one sentence, but it goes like this: When any corporate entity can 'own' data, despite the fact that the data is out in the public use and domain (not as in for public domain) then the government granting those rights has lost all control, or more likely, never had control of anything. When a television program is broadcast on public airwaves, all the content of that publication is in the public domain... period. To say that it is owned, and use of it is licensed would require a Non-disclosure or licensing agreement be signed with the sale of every baseball stadium ticket. All baseball and opera (etc) critics would also need a license to tell the public what kind of 'data' can be obtained when attending the game or show. Essentially, this can be extrapolated to say that any company who employs you has to sign a license agreement to ensure that all data pertaining to you, and your work efforts is not used without appropriate license fees.
What I mean to say is that if this is upheld, then all hell breaks loose on data ownership. Several questions can then be asked:
Can people use my data without paying me? As in, if I participate in a survey, what licenses need to be signed? Can credit card companies or even the grocery store collect data about me without paying a fee?
It all sounds silly, but the principle is sound, data can not be owned, data wants to be free.
I agree that if you have a unique way of presenting data, you can charge for that as long as people will pay for your presentation of it. Imagine what the world would be like if CNN was only shown to people that paid for it by pay per view? Now imagine what the license key scheme would be like? How in the hell would sports bars work?
The best thing is for some of this silliness to come to light as legislation, then we can all tell legislators what we think... personally, I think baseball should just go away... problem solved, but that is just me.
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Interesting way to look at it. Except the karma has been earned as the sum of previous contributions; it just means that anyone who participates and is not a troll posts at 2. And looking now I've received several "troll" mods and more "overrated", but a few "interesting". None of these make any sense.
See the Slashdot FAQ, supposedly you 'modded yourself up' by using your Karma bonus.
I didn't "use" my bonus. It's the default, I would have to choose to not "use" it. At least that's how I see it.
And on the page you linked:
No one at all had modded my post up at the time, let alone several simualtaneously.I didn't "use" my bonus. It's the default, I would have to choose to not "use" it. At least that's how I see it.
We can argue about how it should be, or how you believe it should be or whatever.
I merely pointed you why this might have happened, it happened, live with it, it is bound to happen again at times.
Oh, and don't take my posts as a sign of me agreeing or disagreeing with this specific moderation or any such moderations, as said, I merely pointed you at why it probably happaned. That has nothign to do with either your or my agreement.