Last month, Yahoo! filed suit against the NFL Players Association regarding the question of whether the union had the right to continue to charge for the use of player names and statistics in fantasy football games, in light of court decisions standing for the proposition that such facts are within the public domain.
Now, the case has been settled.
No details have been provided. But it’s possible that Yahoo! has relented on its fairly aggressive claim that a wide range of information can be used without compensation: “likenesses (including, without limitation, numbers), pictures,
photographs, voices, facsimile signatures and/or biographical
information (including but not limited to player statistics).”
Perhaps the union has agreed to allow Yahoo! to use certain information without compensation (such as names and statistics), and that Yahoo! will pay the NFLPA a negotiated sum for photos and other data.
Regardless, the case was over barely a month after it began.
It’s surprising, and it’s somewhat unfortunate.
After all, the lawyers have to eat, too.
Lawyers have to eat?!?!?
Society is bankrupt
Thanks to you dirtballs
“After all, the lawyers have to eat, too.”
That’s what she said.
“lawyers have to eat, too.”
Cannibalism. Solve two problems at once.
Cannibalism….that’s funny.
Sounds like neither side wanted to risk a judgment.
It’s likely that Yahoo! saw precedent for not being able to get likenesses free and might have wanted to preserve the relationship for non-fantasy purposes. The NFLPA, meanwhile, had to know it stood no chance on names and stats in the Eighth Circuit, where two previous cases have already gone against the unions.
Lots of coverage of these cases can be found here: http://www.fantasysportsbusiness.com/wordpress/tag/yahoo-v-nflpa/
You all are really slow, I read this story a few hours ago. Seems to be that way a lot though.
Why not try to ‘report’ stories rather than re-report what others already reported hours ago?
“lawyers have to eat, too.”
They do eat, they get your first born as a portion of their legal fees and lunch rolled into one
stupid case. the bulk of yahoo’s fantasy league business was free to the end user… i.e. they weren’t making money off *using* the likenesses… mainly just ad revenue.
the NFLPA, on the other hand….