• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 3, 2008

In a blow to Major League Baseball, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to hear an appeal of a ruling allowing fantasy baseball sites to use publicly available statistics about the players. The court did not give a reason for its decision.

The case stemmed from a dispute between C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing, which offers fantasy sports games on its Web site CDMSports.com, and Major League Baseball about whether posting baseball players' statistics compromised their right to control the commercial use of their images.

C.B.C. had a licensing deal with the MLB's Players Association, but that agreement expired in 2005. At that point, the MLB's Internet arm, Advanced Media, refused to offer C.B.C. a new license for fantasy baseball.

C.B.C. then sued, asking a federal court to declare it had the right to use baseball players' names and statistics without a license. Advanced Media the Players Association countered that C.B.C. had no right to harness the sports stars' identities for a profit.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with C.B.C. last October, ruling that the First Amendment protects the company. "The information used in CBC's fantasy baseball games is all readily available in the public domain, and it would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone," the court wrote.

The Supreme Court's refusal to hear Major League Baseball's appeal gives a boost to Web sites that want to offer fantasy sports without paying licensing fees for use of the players' names and statistics. At the same time, the ruling's ultimate impact could prove limited, said Rick Kurnit, a lawyer with Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz and an expert in legal issues surrounding celebrities' right to control their images.

Kurnit said the case leaves the door open to future lawsuits, especially in regard to fantasy sports other than baseball. For one thing, the opinion is only binding in cases arising in the 8th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over a geographic area encompassing seven states--Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. Secondly, the appellate court singled out baseball in its ruling, stating that courts refer to the sport as "the national pastime."

Web sites offering other types of fantasy sports might not have the same leeway as those focused on baseball, Kurnit said. "One might argue that the decision is limited to baseball," he said. "There's a lot of room for litigation."