Public Domain

Judge Rules Against MLB, Says Fantasy Sports Data is Public Domain

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on August 10, 2006 - 1:25pm.

St. Louis - A federal judge has ruled against the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) and Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), saying that baseball statistics are in the public domain and may be freely used by providers of fantasy sports games.

Lawsuit Seeks More Public Domain Works for Internet Archive

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 20, 2004 - 3:59am.

San Francisco -- An Internet archivist and film collector have filed a lawsuit hoping to change copyright laws so that "orphaned" copyrighted works, or works that are out of print and not commercially viable but still protected by copyright, would be moved to the "public domain," where they could be used freely, Wired News reported. Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle and film collector Rick Prelinger filed the suit -- Kahle v. Ashcroft -- in March; since then the government has filed a motion to dismiss, and the plaintiffs an opposition to that motion. The plaintiffs want to digitize orphaned copyright works such as films to add to a free online library. "Because of the indiscriminate nature of copyright today, the burden of copyright regulation extends to work whether or not the original author has any need for continuing protection," the Kahle lawsuit reads. "That unnecessary burden blocks the cultivation of our culture and the spread of knowledge." The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California will hear arguments on Oct. 29.

tags: lawsuit | Public Domain | Internet Archive |