MLB vs. Little League Baseball Over Copyright Infringement
Major League Baseball supports youth baseball programs… Until they try to name their teams using MLB team names on uniforms.
MITCHELL BLATT
The battle for professional sports league greed rages on. Less than a month after the NFL threatened to sue fan blog Stripe Hype for using the Bengals “Orange and Black color scheme,” along with other offenses, Major League Baseball has threatened suit against a Chicago-area Little League uniform supplier for get this: producing uniforms bearing MLB team names. The uniforms did not include team logos or other identifying characteristics, simply team names.
Before you gasp at Major League Baseball’s greed, let me say one thing for pro baseball: MLB has no problem with Little League using team names on their jerseys. They have no problem at all with that. The problem is this: the League was purchasing the uniforms from SportStation, and Majestic, which costs more, is the only company with the express written consent of the MLB and Fox Sports to produce Little League jerseys rendering team names.
On the surface, this might seem a strange policy for MLB to pursue considering how much they support youth baseball–they give leagues $30 million–but that money was given to them for a specific purpose: to spend on the officially licensed uniforms of MLB’s officially licensed supplier.
So when another supplier comes trouncing on out with cheaper uniforms that give you just as much power as an officially licensed jersey, you can see where MLB would get a little mad. Especially when those uniforms contain copyrighted material.
It would be one thing if the uniforms had generic baseball names like, say, the Cardinals, Blue Jays, or Sox… (Chico’s Bail Bonds?)
With such high demand names already being copyrighted, all teams within the Tinley Park Bulldogs youth sports organization had to wear the name Bulldogs (University of Georgia, this is your chance to make fortunes with a lawsuit!) accompanied by the name of a MLB city. I’m surprised MLB doesn’t hold any copyrights to the names of cities that their teams play in, but I guess they’re still battling the NFL for those rights.
So instead of having the, uh, “Kardinals” play the “Red Saux” you’ve got the St. Louis Bulldogs playing the Boston Bulldogs.
The kids don’t seem to care, according to articles. It’s about the spirit of the game to them.
That’s one thing Major League Baseball doesn’t have.
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Another brilliant post.
That is sickening that MLB would do that. Apparently they have more time on their hands, for ticky tacky crap like that to catch their eye, then I once thought.
Ridiculous!
NOTHING MLB does in regards to money and contractual rights surprsies me.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they sent compliance officers down to those fields and ripped the uniforms off the kids’ backs if they weren’t supposed to be wearing them.