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[joshdg]

Hi all,

I have written an iPhone app that gets stats from espn.com, manipulates them, then reports them. It lets you get custom player stats on the go. I read somewhere that sports stats are a matter of public historical record, but that doesn't seem quite right. Not sure how internet property works..my app is just a "way" to look at espn's data, so to speak. I imagine I would run into trouble if I tried charging money for the app. Thoughts/workarounds?

-Josh

[Zonath]

Take a look at The National Basketball Association v. Motorola, 105 F.3d 841 (2nd Cir. 1997),http://www.bitlaw.com/source/cases/copyright/nba.html for a discussion of the issues regarding your potential use of ESPN's statistics.  The skinny of the NBA case is that statistics are facts, and not especially subject to copyright, but that state law claims of misappropriation could potentially cause some problems, depending on what sorts of data are used.

[artchain]

Also note that, if users of your app start making noticeable demands on the epsn.com server, it will be quite simple for them to make some small technical changes that will prevent your app from working (and result in pissed-off customers demanding refunds).  I work with a number of "content" websites, and we regularly employ measures to block "site scrapers."

[joshdg]

Re: Zonath

Very interesting. How about using espn's pictures of the players. Surely that's no good. Although interestingly, Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, and mlb.com all have the exact same pictures. They're probably someones property.

Re: Artchain

I had considered that. I feel kind of scummy being labelled a scraper lol. But, espn is an enormous site with many servers. I don't think any traffic I generate will have a real effect. If my app were to get big, I would just create my own database and autofill it first with espn's historical (i.e. not todays) data, and then I would only have to update it a few times per day to get the "new" results.

[Zonath]

If Yahoo Sports, ESPN, et al. all have the same pictures of players, it's probably because they come from press kits or something similar, and are supplied under license directly from MLB.  If you wanted to use such images for a fan site or app, you might be able to get permission to do so -- I know a lot of video game developers are pretty generous in giving license to screenshots and the like to fan sites, although MLB probably doesn't rely on the same sorts of Internet word-of-mouth for their business model that game developers do, and so may be a little tighter in granting licenses.

So yes, bottom line is that photos are almost certainly someone's property, and almost certainly protected by copyright.