Recent U.S. court rulings against the MLB say that MLB statistics, at least, are public domain and can't be copyrighted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Lea

Recent U.S. court rulings against the MLB say that MLB statistics, at least, are public domain and can't be copyrighted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Advanced_Media#MLBAM_vs._CDM_Legal_Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Advanced_... Note that soon after the MLB's ultimate appeal to the Supreme Court was not taken up by the Court, effectively ending that case, ESPN opted out of their multi-year deal with the MLB for the rights. Presumably ESPN still pays STATS for the compilation services, rather than compiling their own.