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Fantasy baseball leagues can keep using the names and statistics of major league players without licensing agreements.
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The Supreme Court on Monday refused to get involved in an ongoing dispute between a fantasy sports business and professional baseball. Without comment, the justices declined to hear the case involving the $1.5 billion industry in the United States.
Fantasy sports players draft teams of real-life players and compete against other owners using those players' statistics.
The 2005 lawsuit involved C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing Inc., a Missouri company unable to obtain a license from a subsidiary of Major League Baseball. The company, which had a quarter-million customers at the time, was banned from using players' names in their fantasy games.
C.B.C. sued, claiming that players' names and baseball statistics are readily available in newspapers and online, and therefore are not the intellectual property of MLB.
The players' union joined the case on MLB's side, alleging a state law violation of the players' publicity rights -- the ability to profit from the commercial use of a person's name.
A federal court and the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled in favor of the fantasy baseball business, saying that enforcing state law rights would violate C.B.C.'s right of free speech protected by the First Amendment.
"We're considering our options," union spokesman Greg Bouris said of the Supreme Court's decision.
Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the MLB subsidiary, declined comment.
"We are continuing our policy from previous decisions in referring comment to the (union) as our position here is one of a licensee of the rights with term set to expire at the end of this year," MLBAM spokesman Matt Gould said.
Charlie Wiegert, a founding member and co-owner of the company at the center of the debate, said baseball is hurting itself by cracking down on businesses that create more interest in the sport.
"I know they want to do what they can to make as much money as they can, but all fantasy sports does is promote their industry," Wiegert said. "It's taken a lot of casual fans and made them more than casual."
Wiegert estimated 20 million fans play fantasy sports. He said 600,000 currently are customers of CDM Fantasy Sports and Fanball.com, which are now owned by Liberty Media Corp.
