9 ms·

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm especially not a British lawyer, but I do have an Athletic subscription. The article discusses a lawsuit on behalf of Primer League an

by haubey 6y ago

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm especially not a British lawyer, but I do have an Athletic subscription. The article discusses a lawsuit on behalf of Primer League and mostly lower league soccer players in England around their "personal data." > More than 400 current and former players have signed up to pursue gaming, betting and data-processing companies who utilise their personal statistics without consent or compensation. As others have said, at least in the states, facts are not copyrightable. TA also states the lawsuit isn't going about this as part of image rights for the players, but doesn't say exactly what the argument will be. It makes it seem this is driven by lower league players who obviously don't have as lucrative careers. Again IANAL but I don't see how if I go to a game and compile statistics myself how that's a breach of the players' data. Maybe if the club had a contact when I bought the ticket, but then I would think the players would need an agreement with the clubs to make that clear, because I'm not buying the ticket from the player I'm buying it from the club. Same with TV rights, that's league, club, and TV station rights, not player rights.

matthewheath 6y ago
The legal argument appears to be: 1. There have been breaches of data protection law (GDPR as implemented in the Data Protection Act 2018), e.g. players did not consent to data transfer, the data isn't accurate, etc. and it's done on a commercial basis. 2. These breaches were injurious to the economic prospects of the affected players and therefore damages should be awarded. I would imagine that the cause of action will be the tort of negligence against whoever sold the data on, and/or the gaming, betting, and data-processing companies. This is because they arguably had a duty of care to the players, the duty was breached, and the players suffered some harm -- based solely on the facts in this article. Regarding personal compilation of statistics, that's fine - there's an exemption for activities of a purely personal nature in the GDPR - which is why you wouldn't get caught, but commercial exploitation of the data falls outside of that.
- mola 6y ago
  It seems there's a huge difference if your data is collected when you engage in a private activity (i.e. was not intended for public consumption)and participating in a public event where your behaviour is intended to be consumed by the public. Does GDPR make this distinction?
  - matthewheath 6y ago
    The GDPR primarily focuses on the intent of the person processing or collecting the data rather than whether the activity you engaged in was private or public, although it does take into account reasonable expectations around privacy as well. I suppose it focuses on that because it's more flexible to enforce.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  The idea that everything remotely involving data is forbidden under GDPR is giving it a bad name. I'm reminded of every Comcast sin being labeled as a "net neutrality" issue. Here, specifically, GDPR prescribes exemptions for journalism: https://gdpr.eu/article-85-right-to-freedom-of-expression-and-information/ https://gdpr.eu/article-85-right-to-freedom-of-expression-an... There are probably other exemptions that would apply for innocuous activity freely done in public, with the explicit understanding that it would be filmed.
  - that_guy_iain 6y ago
    I doubt statistics won't be consider personal data. For example "Someone shot 5 shots on goal" is not exactly personal data. "Simon Munster played 54 mintues" should not be personal data it's a fact of a public event.
    - closeparen 6y ago
      GDPR personal data is anything relating to an identifiable person. It’s not an expectation of privacy standard. Data gathered by observing you in public is protected the same as data you share with the controller in confidence.
    - boublepop 6y ago
      A famous athlete wearing a brand sneaker is also just a fact of a public event. Yet if that brand uses it in advertisement they still need to pay the athlete for permission.
      - that_guy_iain 6y ago
        No they need to pay the athlete to wear the brand. Otherwise he wears a different brand that pays him. They also pay for the time the athlete spends making ads for the brand. If the player just wears the brand through their own choice and they company advertises "As worn by Jordan in NBA all-star game!" then they would not need to pay. Ads and stats are two completely different things.
- notahacker 6y ago
  I think the challenge will be persuading courts that actions that users are paid to undertake in public and contractually agreed to reassign relevant image rights to are [i] 'personal data' under the intended meaning of GDPR and that [ii] something they didn't have informed consent about the possibility third parties might have access to when signing those contracts. Proving actual instances of harm suffered from the dissemination of unfavourable statistics is also going to be tricky (even though there are undoubtedly players that have lost out). It's plausible the net effect of increased statistics on player salaries is positive; certainly they haven't gone down on average. Since most player contracts are frequently renegotiated and most clubs use third party databases and generate revenue from betting companies (so if necessary they'd all end up with clauses permitting this data use), the long term effects of a favourable stretch of the definition of 'personal data' are more likely to have chilling implications for people collating activity/performance metrics or compiling biographies of other types of public figure anyway...
  - matthewheath 6y ago
    Yes, I quite agree that the prospect of success appears remote. They would have an arguable case for negligence regarding data inaccuracy though, so I wouldn't be surprised if they submit that as an additional claim and abandon the GDPR claim if that seems likely to fail.
  - Retric 6y ago
    I think betting is likely to have an unusually negative economic impact on the players. Loss avoidance means people are more likely to remember players ‘underperforming’ expectations than exceeding them. That’s going to have a negative impact on their marketability as paid sponsors independent of actual performance. It’s questionable if they can win, but demonstrating damages may be the easiest part of this case.
    - notahacker 6y ago
      I think proving a specific instance of lost sponsorship income to the satisfaction of a court is going to be extraordinarily difficult, especially if the argument is that consumers draw more adverse inferences from commercial datasets (which they generally don't have access to themselves; betting companies use them to help set the odds) than watching the matches. Even more so when the context is that virtually any employer of professional footballers derives some of their revenue from betting, and betting companies are the primary sponsors of half the English Premier League teams and the English Football League organization
javajosh 6y ago
I think another argument is that the game is enjoyed in many forms, over radio, over television, streamed over the internet - and all of those rights must be purchased, etc. If the game statistics are another form of enjoyment, then it is another form, and should be subject to the same ownership issues as the other channels. OTOH, I think the argument is very weak. First, precedent is strongly against the players here. Player stats have never been licensed to my knowledge. It's not clear if this is for lack of trying, or if the market for that data used to be superfans, and it was too small to matter. That said, in any argument I tend to side with the underdog. I think it would be great if Athletic voluntarily shared some of their revenue with players! It would be a good move for them, because it would take wind out of the sails of the counter-parties, and it wouldn't acknowledge the players right to their data, except tacitly.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > Player stats have never been licensed to my knowledge. Of course they are, that's the entire business model of data analytics companies - the customers are: - clubs and national teams themselves (e.g. German national team coaches Klinsmann and Löw were famous for early adopting data-driven training) - sports betting services, casinos and similar enterprises - TV and radio stations so that the commenters can (at an instant) pull facts like "player xyz has a 80% successful pass rate over the last 30 games" This stuff is called "soccer analytics", the (German) Wikipedia has a decent article: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_Analytics https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_Analytics
  - HelloMcFly 6y ago
    In those instances, nobody is licensing the statistics themselves, they are licensing access to the statistics databases that those organizations have compile and maintain. At least that's my understanding.
- matsemann 6y ago
  > and all of those rights must be purchased this have been tried for Chess, and deemed not applicable. Others are allowed to do live coverage of the moves without purchasing any rights. The organizers control the live footage, can ban them from entering the premises to interview players etc., so most will adhere to some form of contract. But if you have no ties there's nothing stopping you from making your own content based on purely the moves being made. Update: Specifically, the moves are not copyrightable https://chess24.com/en/read/news/us-judge-agrees-with-chess24-on-chess-moves https://chess24.com/en/read/news/us-judge-agrees-with-chess2... It also mentions "NBA vs. Motorola" in which NBA didn't own statistics of NBA games and others were allowed to use them.
3np 6y ago
As matthewheath pointed out, this is around personal data use as opposed to copyright. IANAL but I wouldn't be shocked however this falls.
jb775 6y ago
> facts are not copyrightable This is the nail in the coffin. Imagine the lengths lawyers would go if they could monetize any abstract reference to something.
- slg 6y ago
  The results of my last STD test and the transaction history of my bank account are also facts. We have decided some facts deserve specific protections, at least in the US. So I don't think we can dismiss the players here with "facts are not copyrightable" without knowing what specific statistics are being recorded and to which the players reject. Sports technology has exploded over recent years and the data collection of athletes is now an industry of its own. There can be a range in the degree of ownership that a player deserves from the total number of goals scored in public matches to the heartrate of a player throughout a private practice session.
  - nickff 6y ago
    Those facts (STD test result and banking history) are protected by laws and private agreements which restrict your counter-parties; my understanding is that if some third party somehow learns those facts, they can do basically whatever they want with them (aside from blackmail).
    - bosie 6y ago
      are you saying that if i happen to stumble onto a data leak of those private facts, i can use them to create a non-blackmailing (non-profit?) business?
      - nickff 6y ago
        IANAL, but you can definitely gossip, and I think you can generally create a business based on selling the data (though you may be subject to some state laws).
      - warkdarrior 6y ago
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
Do you need to license anything to do a radio broadcast of a game? All it’s doing is reporting the facts. I suspect it’s less immediately dismissible than you suggest.
- looperhacks 6y ago
  If you broadcast the game, that's not just facts but playing audio that someone records. Just telling the result or current state, sure, that's just data - but I never heard that there's a license for that.
torstenvl 6y ago
Facts are not subject to copyright in the U.S. However, there are other forms of intellectual property. In Illinois, where I am barred, there is a right of publicity - exclusive ownership over your identity when used for a commercial purpose. Could that extend to your name and unique statistical data when used as part of a for-pay entertainment endeavor? Maybe. I'm not aware of any case law one way or another, as I don't practice in IP anymore. However, my point is that it doesn't seem completely crazy to me to think maybe the UK has some basis in law for this suit. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
johnisgood 6y ago
> facts are not copyrightable Yeah, but there are trade secrets, for example, or illegal numbers. I brought them up because thought they are related. There is also medical history or psychiatric history.

by haubey 6y ago

matthewheath 6y ago

The legal argument appears to be: 1. There have been breaches of data protection law (GDPR as implemented in the Data Protection Act 2018), e.g. players did not consent to data transfer, the data isn't accurate, etc. and it's done on a commercial basis. 2. These breaches were injurious to the economic prospects of the affected players and therefore damages should be awarded. I would imagine that the cause of action will be the tort of negligence against whoever sold the data on, and/or the gaming, betting, and data-processing companies. This is because they arguably had a duty of care to the players, the duty was breached, and the players suffered some harm -- based solely on the facts in this article. Regarding personal compilation of statistics, that's fine - there's an exemption for activities of a purely personal nature in the GDPR - which is why you wouldn't get caught, but commercial exploitation of the data falls outside of that.

mola 6y ago
It seems there's a huge difference if your data is collected when you engage in a private activity (i.e. was not intended for public consumption)and participating in a public event where your behaviour is intended to be consumed by the public. Does GDPR make this distinction?
- matthewheath 6y ago
  The GDPR primarily focuses on the intent of the person processing or collecting the data rather than whether the activity you engaged in was private or public, although it does take into account reasonable expectations around privacy as well. I suppose it focuses on that because it's more flexible to enforce.
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
The idea that everything remotely involving data is forbidden under GDPR is giving it a bad name. I'm reminded of every Comcast sin being labeled as a "net neutrality" issue. Here, specifically, GDPR prescribes exemptions for journalism: https://gdpr.eu/article-85-right-to-freedom-of-expression-and-information/ https://gdpr.eu/article-85-right-to-freedom-of-expression-an... There are probably other exemptions that would apply for innocuous activity freely done in public, with the explicit understanding that it would be filmed.
- that_guy_iain 6y ago
  I doubt statistics won't be consider personal data. For example "Someone shot 5 shots on goal" is not exactly personal data. "Simon Munster played 54 mintues" should not be personal data it's a fact of a public event.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    GDPR personal data is anything relating to an identifiable person. It’s not an expectation of privacy standard. Data gathered by observing you in public is protected the same as data you share with the controller in confidence.
  - boublepop 6y ago
    A famous athlete wearing a brand sneaker is also just a fact of a public event. Yet if that brand uses it in advertisement they still need to pay the athlete for permission.
    - that_guy_iain 6y ago
      No they need to pay the athlete to wear the brand. Otherwise he wears a different brand that pays him. They also pay for the time the athlete spends making ads for the brand. If the player just wears the brand through their own choice and they company advertises "As worn by Jordan in NBA all-star game!" then they would not need to pay. Ads and stats are two completely different things.
notahacker 6y ago
I think the challenge will be persuading courts that actions that users are paid to undertake in public and contractually agreed to reassign relevant image rights to are [i] 'personal data' under the intended meaning of GDPR and that [ii] something they didn't have informed consent about the possibility third parties might have access to when signing those contracts. Proving actual instances of harm suffered from the dissemination of unfavourable statistics is also going to be tricky (even though there are undoubtedly players that have lost out). It's plausible the net effect of increased statistics on player salaries is positive; certainly they haven't gone down on average. Since most player contracts are frequently renegotiated and most clubs use third party databases and generate revenue from betting companies (so if necessary they'd all end up with clauses permitting this data use), the long term effects of a favourable stretch of the definition of 'personal data' are more likely to have chilling implications for people collating activity/performance metrics or compiling biographies of other types of public figure anyway...
- matthewheath 6y ago
  Yes, I quite agree that the prospect of success appears remote. They would have an arguable case for negligence regarding data inaccuracy though, so I wouldn't be surprised if they submit that as an additional claim and abandon the GDPR claim if that seems likely to fail.
- Retric 6y ago
  I think betting is likely to have an unusually negative economic impact on the players. Loss avoidance means people are more likely to remember players ‘underperforming’ expectations than exceeding them. That’s going to have a negative impact on their marketability as paid sponsors independent of actual performance. It’s questionable if they can win, but demonstrating damages may be the easiest part of this case.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    I think proving a specific instance of lost sponsorship income to the satisfaction of a court is going to be extraordinarily difficult, especially if the argument is that consumers draw more adverse inferences from commercial datasets (which they generally don't have access to themselves; betting companies use them to help set the odds) than watching the matches. Even more so when the context is that virtually any employer of professional footballers derives some of their revenue from betting, and betting companies are the primary sponsors of half the English Premier League teams and the English Football League organization

javajosh 6y ago

I think another argument is that the game is enjoyed in many forms, over radio, over television, streamed over the internet - and all of those rights must be purchased, etc. If the game statistics are another form of enjoyment, then it is another form, and should be subject to the same ownership issues as the other channels. OTOH, I think the argument is very weak. First, precedent is strongly against the players here. Player stats have never been licensed to my knowledge. It's not clear if this is for lack of trying, or if the market for that data used to be superfans, and it was too small to matter. That said, in any argument I tend to side with the underdog. I think it would be great if Athletic voluntarily shared some of their revenue with players! It would be a good move for them, because it would take wind out of the sails of the counter-parties, and it wouldn't acknowledge the players right to their data, except tacitly.

mschuster91 6y ago
> Player stats have never been licensed to my knowledge. Of course they are, that's the entire business model of data analytics companies - the customers are: - clubs and national teams themselves (e.g. German national team coaches Klinsmann and Löw were famous for early adopting data-driven training) - sports betting services, casinos and similar enterprises - TV and radio stations so that the commenters can (at an instant) pull facts like "player xyz has a 80% successful pass rate over the last 30 games" This stuff is called "soccer analytics", the (German) Wikipedia has a decent article: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_Analytics https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_Analytics
- HelloMcFly 6y ago
  In those instances, nobody is licensing the statistics themselves, they are licensing access to the statistics databases that those organizations have compile and maintain. At least that's my understanding.
matsemann 6y ago
> and all of those rights must be purchased this have been tried for Chess, and deemed not applicable. Others are allowed to do live coverage of the moves without purchasing any rights. The organizers control the live footage, can ban them from entering the premises to interview players etc., so most will adhere to some form of contract. But if you have no ties there's nothing stopping you from making your own content based on purely the moves being made. Update: Specifically, the moves are not copyrightable https://chess24.com/en/read/news/us-judge-agrees-with-chess24-on-chess-moves https://chess24.com/en/read/news/us-judge-agrees-with-chess2... It also mentions "NBA vs. Motorola" in which NBA didn't own statistics of NBA games and others were allowed to use them.

3np 6y ago

As matthewheath pointed out, this is around personal data use as opposed to copyright. IANAL but I wouldn't be shocked however this falls.

jb775 6y ago

> facts are not copyrightable This is the nail in the coffin. Imagine the lengths lawyers would go if they could monetize any abstract reference to something.

slg 6y ago
The results of my last STD test and the transaction history of my bank account are also facts. We have decided some facts deserve specific protections, at least in the US. So I don't think we can dismiss the players here with "facts are not copyrightable" without knowing what specific statistics are being recorded and to which the players reject. Sports technology has exploded over recent years and the data collection of athletes is now an industry of its own. There can be a range in the degree of ownership that a player deserves from the total number of goals scored in public matches to the heartrate of a player throughout a private practice session.
- nickff 6y ago
  Those facts (STD test result and banking history) are protected by laws and private agreements which restrict your counter-parties; my understanding is that if some third party somehow learns those facts, they can do basically whatever they want with them (aside from blackmail).
  - bosie 6y ago
    are you saying that if i happen to stumble onto a data leak of those private facts, i can use them to create a non-blackmailing (non-profit?) business?
    - nickff 6y ago
      IANAL, but you can definitely gossip, and I think you can generally create a business based on selling the data (though you may be subject to some state laws).
    - warkdarrior 6y ago

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

Do you need to license anything to do a radio broadcast of a game? All it’s doing is reporting the facts. I suspect it’s less immediately dismissible than you suggest.

looperhacks 6y ago
If you broadcast the game, that's not just facts but playing audio that someone records. Just telling the result or current state, sure, that's just data - but I never heard that there's a license for that.

torstenvl 6y ago

Facts are not subject to copyright in the U.S. However, there are other forms of intellectual property. In Illinois, where I am barred, there is a right of publicity - exclusive ownership over your identity when used for a commercial purpose. Could that extend to your name and unique statistical data when used as part of a for-pay entertainment endeavor? Maybe. I'm not aware of any case law one way or another, as I don't practice in IP anymore. However, my point is that it doesn't seem completely crazy to me to think maybe the UK has some basis in law for this suit. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on it.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

johnisgood 6y ago

> facts are not copyrightable Yeah, but there are trade secrets, for example, or illegal numbers. I brought them up because thought they are related. There is also medical history or psychiatric history.