The Uncharted Backwaters of the Unfashionable

The “fair use” line in the sand

The thesis of that last post would probably be something like, “Free, useful APIs are routinely overlooked in many newsroom, a policy that should be re-explored.”

APIs offer free content. They’re typically intriguing. And they’re built to be torn apart and rebuilt as you see fit. The negative image of them might be the new thorn in my ass: Sports stats.

“Stats,” in this instance, is all-encompassing. It’s the stats that make up the back of the baseball card. It’s W-L record. It’s divisional standings and game scores, league leaders and historical info. It’s ridiculously compelling, and with so many sources, they’re easy to get and can be rebuilt as you see fit.

The problem is that this time, you’re not getting permission. And that’s a whole new can of worms.
The dichotomy comes into play when we start flipping through the print edition. Vendors typically supply the staples, things like box scores and standings. But the minute we start rolling out aggregated statistics not collected by the vendor, we’re delving into new territory. And often the only way we can do that is by giving credit to the source we stole them from, typically ESPN, FOXsports, cbssportsline, or some other online wealth of sports knowledge. We could even go to the league homepage, where solid, reputable stats are aggregated.

But for some reason, we scoff when the same sourcing must be used for an online application. And that’s a shame. Maybe it’s a residual effect of growing up listening to some version of this before every game:

“This copyrighted telecast is presented by authority of the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball. It may not be reproduced or retransmitted in any form, and the accounts and descriptions of this game may not be disseminated, without express written consent.”

Does anyone have examples of getting around this Catch 22? It’s like we’re going thirsty in the ocean — surrounded by sports stats, unable to use any. Sports information seems like it should be the holy grail of online journalism, a creative, telling visualization would almost certainly draw repeat traffic. It’s continually updated information, it’s highly relevant to a specific demographic. If you don’t believe me, try starting a fantasy football league in your office and start batting away the takers.

The possibilities with this stuff are numerous. But our hands are tied.

Where does fair use begin and end? What’s the public domain, what’s proprietary, and is there any middle ground?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 9:30 am and is filed under Innovation, Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.