Media and MLB Battle Over Press Credentials

Restrictions of use of photographs challenged

New York, April 5, 2001 -- As the 2001 Major League Baseball season was set to begin, baseball officials and major newspapers across the nation were embroiled in a controversy over proposed new restrictions which sought to limit the transmission and use of photographs, as well as the play-by-play coverage of its productions.

However, the majority of newspaper editors nationwide, were not inclined to accept the proposed new restrictions as lawyers from both sides became involved in negotiations to resolve the dispute. In the meantime, the league instructed its teams to issue day passes to reporters covering the games. Reporters and photographers normally carry credentials with them listing any restrictions in order to gain access to the ballpark.

It would seem that the league intended to insert a new clause, effectively preventing newspapers from using their own photographs for other means, such as for promotions or other commercial use. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, Tim Burke, assistant managing editor/sports of the Palm Beach Post and president of the Associated Press Sports Editors, stated, "We won't sign any document that signs away our content to Major League Baseball."

In a separate report out of the New York Times, the assistant general counsel of the Times, George Freeman, stated that baseball officials were challenging newspapers' First Amendment rights, as well as their intellectual property rights. "The underlying issue," he stated, according to the report, "is that they view a baseball game as a private performance whose information they totally control, rather than a public news event which ought to be in the public domain."

Negotiations over the issue became forced, when editors and reporters refused to sign,and thereby endorse the new policy. Sports franchises, now more than ever before, wish to protect the property rights to their games. Speculation surrounds the advent of the Internet along with various other new ways to distribute news and information as being at the center of the controversy.

Major League Baseball is also involved in a dispute regarding their requirement of radio stations to supply a feed of their broadcasts so that the league may resell them on it's Web sites. Baseball officials are playing hardball as commissioner Bud Selig has proclaimed that the Internet will soon be a major source of revenue for its teams. Each team's web site will now be linked to one another, as well as to, www.mlb.com.

In recent years, organizations such as the International Olympic Committee have attempted to limit the Internet coverage of their events.

Legally, the media won a victory in a case involving similar, though not identical facts. In 1997, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in NBA v. Motorola, Inc., 105 F. 3d 841 (2d Cir. 1997) concluded that the National Basketball Association could not stop Motorola and a paging company from distributing real-time scores and plays to subscribers.

Sources

Baseball Is Trying to Limit How News Coverage Is Used, The New York Times, March 31, 2001

"Editors Balk At MLB's Demands," Chicago Tribune, March 31, 2001.

sportsbusinessnews. con, April 2, 3 and 4, 2001

David Burkey