Generic Fair Use

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Tag: sports (page 2 of 2)

The NFL will complain about your Vines (and GIFs)

[originally published on October 13, 2015 at www.law-dlc.com]

As a sports fan, Monday, October 12, 2015 was a strange and turbulent day.  USC fired Steve Sarkisian one day after asking him to take an administrative leave of absence (cue the employment lawyers).  Steve Spurrier, the head coach of the other USC – South Carolina – suddenly walked away and called it a career in mid-season.  Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott congratulated the Astros on making the American League Championship Series when they were leading 6-2 in the eighth inning, only for the Royals to score five quick runs and turn me into a blubbering mess of a baseball fan.  Someone in the governor’s office forgot about Yogi Berra and “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

Yet the craziest sports story of the entire day might be something that happened over social media.  In the mid-afternoon, the Twitter accounts for Deadspin (@Deadspin) and SB Nation’s GIF-based sub account (@SBNationGIF) were suddenly suspended.  The initial reasons were murky, with media reports later suggesting that the National Football League used its influence with Twitter to suspend the accounts.  And why?  Because the Deadspin account and the SBNationGIF account both routinely posted or re-tweeted Vines and GIFs of highlight plays from NFL games. Which are copyrighted works.

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Express Yourself! A Primer on the Types of U.S. Trademarks

[originally published on October 12, 2015 at www.law-dlc.com]

Trademarks are everywhere.  Everything from a well-known slogan by a shoe company, to a famous organizational logo, to the signature color scheme or uniform of a performer can be considered as a trademark.  Trademarks can take many different shapes and forms, each of which may be protected by U.S. law.  The key is what can (or should be) protected and what may be enforced as the intellectual property rights of an individual or entity.  U.S. trademark law allows for a multitude of ways to express yourself or identify your product to the consuming public.  In fact, the law encourages this!

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How are DraftKings and FanDuel even Legal in the United States?

[originally published October 6, 2015 on www.law-dlc.com]

If you regularly watch sports or have stumbled across ESPN in the last few months, you are certain to have seen the relentless advertising campaigns by the companies DraftKings and FanDuel.  These advertisements are promoting what is known as “Daily Fantasy Sports” or “DFS” for short.  Fantasy sports, specifically fantasy football, experienced exponential growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s, coinciding directly with increased access to the internet and websites that served to process sports stats and information.  Every major sports website now hosts thousands of fantasy leagues year-round, usually for free.  The interest in season-long fantasy sports crested in the latter parts of the last decade, with millions of Americans participating in fantasy leagues every year.  Some of these leagues also allow for the possibility of winning millions of dollars.  Real, actual money.

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