Gamecasting is the new label for the on-line distribution of as-it-happens information about sports scores, players and action. It's a growing phenomenon on the web.
Major League Baseball (MLB) provides gamecasts from its own web site; but it's keen to ensure that anyone else transmitting games information is paying it a licence fee.
Bob Bowman, CEO of MLB Advanced Media, told Wired News: "If someone is communicating information about a game in real time, on a pitch-by-pitch basis, that's an exhibition of that game".
He added, "There's no difference, in our eyes, between exhibiting a game using text and graphics and doing it on radio or television."
So says MLB, but what does the law say? Not a lot, unfortunately.
Professor Mark Conrad, who teaches sports and new media law at Fordham University, told Wired News that the position in the US was unclear:
"It's a tug of war between copyright and the exemption made for news," he said. "It's tough for a court to find guidance on issues like this. There's probably a line there somewhere, between [giving details after] every half-inning and a television broadcast. This isn't an issue that's going to go away."
In the UK the position is similarly unclear.
According to John MacKenzie, an IP lawyer with international law firm Masons, the UK courts would be unlikely to uphold a copyright claim in relation to gamecasts, so long as the data transmitted had been collected and processed in some way by the gamecaster.
But the gamecaster has to get access to the game – which is where broadcasting rights, the rights to be at the ground, come in.
MacKenzie said:
"The BBC came across a similar difficulty with Talksport, who were broadcasting radio commentary while watching live TV pictures. The BBC stopped them calling it 'live', but could not stop the broadcasts. The same is likely to be true for games information. The tension is between the right to report, and the contractual right to exclusivity."