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I think Twitter here is making the correct decision. I know it isn't happy for you, RobbieStats, but the ramifications for them, whether you are breaking the l
by pj 17y ago
I think Twitter here is making the correct decision.
I know it isn't happy for you, RobbieStats, but the ramifications for them, whether you are breaking the law, or they are through allowing you to do it, are tremendously not fun. As a business they need to err on the side of caution. Look what Youtube went through with Viacom and some other content creators.
Also, I think your article says that to have a case against you for trademark infringement, they have to go after "everyone" who infringes, but I don't believe that is true, I think they only have to defend it, but i don't know exactly what that means or the extent to which it must be defended to be defended at all.
Also sports franchises are pretty ruthless. They will sue you in court and they will sue Twitter in court and they will win or it will cost you and twitter a lot of money and it's just not worth it.
Also, I believe the actual numbers are owned by the industry as well. You have to have written permission to reprint the statistics. If I remember correctly, according to the copyright blurb at the beginning of games, techincally, you aren't even supposed to talk about the game after the game!
It's crazy, but that's what happens when there's a lot of money at stake, people get crazy...
- sachinag 17y agoYou're wrong about the stats of the game. NBA v. Motorola cleared up that stats - even real-time stats - are not an exhibition of the game and can be freely disseminated as they are reports of factual occurrences. First useful Google hit: http://lsolum.typepad.com/copyfutures/2004/09/several_of_my_r.html http://lsolum.typepad.com/copyfutures/2004/09/several_of_my_... The sports leagues' disclaimers are empty nothingness. IANAL, but I've been working on 1st Amendment stuff as a layperson since 1997.
- pj 17y agoThanks for pointing that out!
- snorkel 17y agoRight or wrong, for Twitter it's not even worth the risk or effort to test if that is true or not. Google/YouTube operates the same way: killing the account and taking the PR griping is cheaper than paying lawyers to sort it out.
- lacker 17y agoActually I don't think this issue is clear legally. In NBA v. Motorola it was taken into account that Stats Inc gathered the statistics themselves which is not the case here. Plus at least in some jurisdictions there is the "hot news" doctrine that protects breaking news even though it is a fact. So the disclaimers are not empty nothingness, it is still a legal grey area. e.g. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/the-ap-hot-news-and-hotheaded-blogs/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/the-ap-hot-news-and...