In the Public Domain
The Supreme Court squashed Major League Baseball’s attempt to maintain exclusive control of player statistics, turning down its appeal of an Eighth Circuit Court ruling that allowed fantasy baseball leagues to use the data without paying a licensing fee. “The information used in … fantasy baseball games is all readily available in the public domain,” said the appeals court, “and it would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone.”
Well, this is interesting … and most definitely relevant to the industry. Applied to racing, this ruling could be interpreted to mean that almost all data in the past performances and results charts are in the public domain, as are simple statistics and compilations derived from publicly available data (which makes it ridiculous that Equibase buries historical charts behind a paywall), but not presentation of the data or statistics, figures, and analysis derived using proprietary methods (such as speed figures).
CBSSports.com responded to the Supreme Court’s decision by launching a new site that makes available data for baseball, as well as football, basketball, hockey, and auto racing. I’d love to see a similar initiative in racing. As baseball stats wizard Bill James said,
People take information and build knowledge. When you give them new information they will create new knowledge, absolutely and without question.
Free data and historical stats, that’s the way to build the fan base.
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