Techdirt. Stories about "nba" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories about "nba"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 2 Apr 2013 17:00:00 PDT DailyDirt: Everything Old Is New Again? Human Billboards... Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110119/05013912723/dailydirt-everything-old-is-new-again-human-billboards.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110119/05013912723/dailydirt-everything-old-is-new-again-human-billboards.shtml human billboard tattoos were all the rage. Getting a tattoo is usually not considered a prudent decision, but it does attract attention... and that's usually what people are trying to get with tattoos. Maybe tattoo advertising is making a comeback, or maybe it's just as permanent as the ink in people's skin. Just make sure if you're getting a tattoo for money, that you really like your corporate sponsors. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110119/05013912723 Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:00:00 PDT DailyDirt: Digging Into Sports Statistics Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100914/12140611007/dailydirt-digging-into-sports-statistics.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100914/12140611007/dailydirt-digging-into-sports-statistics.shtml
  • Looking at the stats for 452 NBA players, there are far more than the five traditional positions in basketball -- try 13 different kinds of players. The 'Paint Protector' position gets more fouls than shots and collects rebounds like crazy. The 'Scoring Rebounder' might be a more highly-paid player, though. [url]
  • The NBA wants to provide more engaging statistics to its fans, so it's turned to enterprise software solutions -- SAP HANA. Will re-purposed business analytics software be able to appeal to millions of fans? [url]
  • The PageRank algorithm can be applied to soccer players, based on how many passes a player receives from his teammates, to help analyze how players fit into a team and quantify the overall strength of a team. Obviously, this algorithm has several limitations, but soccer isn't as statistic-friendly as other sports, so data analysis strategies for soccer are not as well developed. [url]
    • If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100914/12140611007     Wed, 27 Jun 2012 09:37:00 PDT Sports Stars Rushing To The Trademark Office: Fear The Brow & That's A Clown Question, Bro Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120626/23325219499/sports-stars-rushing-to-trademark-office-fear-brow-thats-clown-question-bro.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120626/23325219499/sports-stars-rushing-to-trademark-office-fear-brow-thats-clown-question-bro.shtml trademark "Linsanity" when afterthought point guard Jeremy Lin suddenly became an overnight sensation for the NY Knicks. In that case, a bunch of others sought the trademark, and a week or so later, Jeremy Lin himself jumped in to try to get the trademark as well. A quick search at the USPTO shows nine "live" trademarks on Linsanity (well, eight that are just "Linsanity" and one that is "Linsanity 17" -- which is Lin's uniform number). For what it's worth, it seems like only one of those marks is actually held by Jeremy Lin, and it certainly looks like there may be some overlap, so perhaps there will be some litigation at some point.

    Apparently, young sports stars are very quickly learning to rush to the trademark office. Baseball phenom Bryce Harper -- at 19 already living up to the massive expectations Sports Illustrated lumped on his shoulders three years ago -- recently got some attention for telling a Canadian reporter "that's a clown question, bro" in response to a question about his favorite beer and if he was going to go out and celebrate with a beer since he's of legal drinking age in Canada (where they were playing).

    The very next day, Harper filed for a trademark on "that's a clown question, bro." It almost makes you wonder if he'd been saving up that line... As of the latest search, he's the only one filing for it so far, but the link above notes that a brewery in Colorado has already brewed up a batch of beer called "Clown Question, Bro." Since Harper's application is for apparel, it's unlikely it applies to beer. Though, if it were me, I probably would have called it "Clown Question, Brew." Either way, Under Armour, the sporting goods company that Harper has a deal with already, has said that it's going to be releasing a "line" of shirts around the "clown question, bro" phrase.

    Meanwhile, moving back to basketball, there's the news that NBA-bound college hoops star Anthony Davis has filed for trademarks on both "Fear the Brow" and "Raise the Brow" after his... er... "trademark" unibrow. His explanation?
    “I don’t want anyone to try to grow a unibrow because of me and then try to make money off of it,” Davis told CNBC. “Me and my family decided to trademark it because it’s very unique.”
    I'm not quite sure how one "tries to grow a unibrow" if they don't have one already -- and if they legitimately have one, then why is it that only Davis gets to make money from his unibrow? For what it's worth, as the article notes, the phrase has been popular for a while, surrounding his success at Kentucky, but he couldn't profit from it as that would cut into his eligibility as an amateur (cue rant about stupid college sports rules). Either way, lots of "bootleg" apparel was sold -- some of which the university tried to stop, though I'm not sure they had any legal basis for doing so in many cases. There was also one local store, Blue Zone, that sold stuff and filed for its own trademark on the phrase for apparel. There may be an issue there. Davis' trademark application is super broad in terms of what he claims it will apply to. Blue Zone's mark is just for clothing, but Davis' is for a ton of stuff, including clothing, but also fragrances, entertainment "services," water bottles, book covers, pencils, trading cards, lunch bags, facial tissues and much, much more.

    Does Davis have the right to supercede Blue Zone's mark just because he's the one who has the actual unibrow?

    Either way, it seems like a sign of the times, that sports stars these days are rushing to the trademark office at every opportunity to file trademarks on some identifying characteristic. I'm not sure this is a positive development.

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    ]]>     fear-the-clown-brow-question-bro http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120626/23325219499     Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:59:00 PDT Miami Heat Owner Sues Blogger & Google Over 'Unflattering' Photo Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120625/10172319467/miami-heat-owner-sues-blogger-google-over-unflattering-photo.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120625/10172319467/miami-heat-owner-sues-blogger-google-over-unflattering-photo.shtml Dan Snyder? Well here's a situation that seems even more ridiculous. Ranaan Katz is a minority owner of the Miami Heat, who just won the NBA championship. You might think he'd be pretty happy right now. Instead, he's suing a blogger and Google, claiming a copyright violation over of an "unflattering photo." Seeing as the photo in question is now quite newsworthy, here it is (and we're happy to explain fair use theories to Katz's lawyers, if they'd like):

    The full story is even more ridiculous as you dig into the details. It turns out this is the second time that Katz has gone after this blogger. The first time was for defamation. For what? For running a blog that talked about Katz and his company... and, from the sound of things, posted legal documents that apparently Katz didn't want posted.

    Where it gets really bizarre is the massive overreach on the defamation side of things. Because the bar for defamation on a public figure it quite high, Katz's lawyers claim that he's not a public figure -- despite being an owner of the Miami Heat, despite being a well-known successful real estate developer, and despite the fact that there's a street named after him and an "official day" in his honor. Instead, his lawyers have argued that getting the press to report on Katz's legal overreach is an attempt "to make Katz a public figure" even though he clearly is one and has been one. Either way, the blogger, represented by Marc Randazza, responded strongly to the ridiculousness of Katz' original lawsuit. You can see that response below, calling out the fact that a demand for an injunction against any future publication on the blog (as Katz requests) is clear prior restraint and based on no accepted legal theory in a defamation case.

    Separate from that lawsuit, it looks like Katz and his lawyers have now tried a second approach, which appears to be an attempt to use the DMCA to censor. He claimed that the "unflattering image" above violates his copyright. A DMCA takedown was apparently issued to Google, who refused to comply. So now both the blogger and Google have been sued. Of course, it's unclear to me how he even holds the copyright in the photo, since he didn't take it. Either way, given the previous actions in the case, it certainly feels like this is a SLAPP-style suit, filed just to be a nuisance to the blogger who didn't fold under the defamation claims (and yes, to Katz's lawyer, that's an opinion). Update: I've added the filing in the copyright lawsuit below, which adds one other detail: the photograph is not registered for copyright in the US. Katz's lawyers point out that since the photo was originally from Israel it doesn't need to be registered, which is true, but could limit the effectiveness of any lawsuit. Separately, according to Randazza, Katz claims to have had the copyright in the photo assigned to him from the original photographer. None of that changes any of the analysis here about the lawsuits in question.

    Of course, all this has really done is activate the Streisand Effect, and get a lot more attention to Katz, to the lawsuits, to the blog and, of course, to the photo itself. You would think that someone with so much money and business success would have thick enough skin to know how to ignore such things. In the meantime, Randazza has pointed out how bizarre it is to go from suing an individual blogger to adding one of the largest companies in the world to the fight on the other side, for no good reason:
    My guess is that their strategy is this: If you keep whiffing against a small time blogger, you might as well then just pick a fight with one of the biggest companies in the world. Sit back and get your popcorn and watch how this one works out. I want to thank Mr. Katz for bringing in an 800 lb gorilla to help me in his unsupportable SLAPP suit.

    We have yet to speak to Google's lawyers about this case, but we expect that they will be receptive to standing up for the First Amendment along with us.
    Sometimes I think there should be mandatory training on the Streisand Effect before one is allowed to become a lawyer.

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    ]]>     this-isn't-going-to-end-well http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120625/10172319467     Wed, 30 May 2012 11:48:00 PDT No, Writing A Song With The Lyric 'Let's Go Thunder' Doesn't Entitle You To 30% Of The Oklahoma City Thunder's Profits Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120530/04110419124/no-writing-song-with-lyric-lets-go-thunder-doesnt-entitle-you-to-30-oklahoma-city-thunders-profits.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120530/04110419124/no-writing-song-with-lyric-lets-go-thunder-doesnt-entitle-you-to-30-oklahoma-city-thunders-profits.shtml said it has no interest in hearing his appeal. Some will claim that this is no big deal, since the courts got it right and this clear overreach of copyright law went nowhere legally. However, it does seem like yet another sign of the insanity of our culture today and the suggestion that everything and every phrase is "ownable" thanks to modern IP laws. You wouldn't even have a case like this if people didn't think it was possible to abuse copyright in this manner -- and given the headlines we see of crazy sounding copyright cases all the time, it shouldn't be any surprise at all that people are tying up courts with ridiculous claims like this one.

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    ]]>     ownership-society http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120530/04110419124     Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Build It And They Will Come... Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100209/1104298096/dailydirt-build-it-they-will-come.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100209/1104298096/dailydirt-build-it-they-will-come.shtml
  • Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame, Ed Weiland -- for being a bit less surprised than most about Linsanity. Weiland wrote in 2010: "... Jeremy Lin is a good enough player to start in the NBA and possibly star." [url]
  • Nate Silver called himself a forecaster, explained how he looked at baseball stats, and created the PECOTA system for evaluating MLB players. Baseball Prospectus bought the PECOTA system in 2003 and publishes its forecasts for all kinds of baseball fans and fantasy baseball leagues. [url]
  • The annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference has picked its top ten finalists for its Research Paper of the Year. These papers discuss various stats like "15% of basketball rebounds hit the floor before being collected." [url]
  • To find some other online challenges and games, check out what StumbleUpon has found to play. [url]  
    • By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100209/1104298096     Fri, 1 Jul 2011 11:42:35 PDT NBA Deletes Evidence Of Players From All Team Websites Due To Intellectual Property Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110701/02544614931/nba-deletes-evidence-players-all-team-websites-due-to-intellectual-property.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110701/02544614931/nba-deletes-evidence-players-all-team-websites-due-to-intellectual-property.shtml did not hit their deadline last night to reach a new collective bargaining agreement, and thus began a lockout/work stoppage. Of course, we're not a sports blog, so what's interesting about that for us? Well.... apparently over the last few days, the webmasters for all of the NBA team websites have been scrambling like mad, because they believe that when the players are locked out, there can be no mention or image of any player on any NBA webpage:
    That's because the moment the clock strikes midnight on the current CBA, all those images and videos of NBA players have to disappear off NBA-owned digital properties. Depending on how you interpret "fair use," the prohibition could include the mere mention of a player's name on an NBA-owned site, though different teams have different interpretations of this particular stipulation.
    That's from ESPN... who doesn't give any more detail as to what it is they actually think would be infringing here. It's certainly not copyright, even though that's implied. There's no copyright in names. And the copyright on the images would be held by whoever took the images, not the players. I'm assuming this is more of a publicity rights issue, which we've been discussing a lot lately. But those are generally based on a patchwork of state laws. And, even so, I can't quite see how that would prevent teams from accurately listing players who were on the team. That's factual information. But not according to the teams:
    There are additional gray areas that are still up for discussion: What about a photo of a Lakers fan wearing a No. 24 Kobe Bryant jersey? What about a retrospective feature on the John Stockton-Karl Malone Jazz teams? Do tweets from the team's official Twitter feed that mention a player and/or link to an image need to be deleted? How about Facebook posts?

    Nobody seems to know for certain the definitive answers to these questions and the criteria seem to be arbitrary. According to more than one team website staffer, the cutoff for images of retired players right now stands at 1992-93 -- Shaquille O'Neal's first season in the league. And social media is an area they're still grappling with as the deadline approaches.

    However strict the boundaries, overhauling the architecture of these sites is a painstaking process that has a lot of talented web people around the league very stressed out. The NBA has built and furnished each team with a website "wire frame" that will take the place of the existing, much more sophisticated site. The wire frame is a rudimentary version of the site, without a lot of the snazzy technology we've grown accustomed to seeing. As a result, each of the 30 team sites will look virtually identical.
    It looks like those "new" sites are in place. I've looked around at a few team sites, and while they may have old players (from decades ago), most traces of modern players have disappeared. They do list the names of players on the team under the "team" tab, but otherwise, the players seem almost entirely absent. And for what reason? Intellectual property shouldn't be part of a labor fight. It's got nothing to do with that. The whole thing just seems silly.

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    ]]>     wow http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110701/02544614931     Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:33:00 PST NBA Player Fined For Sending A Happy Twitter Message Too Soon Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091218/1813257435.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091218/1813257435.shtml overly restrictive social media policy that limits how and when players can send Twitter messages, but I hadn't realized that the NBA had done something similar as well. Unfortunately, it looks like Brandon Jennings of the Milwaukee Bucks ran afoul of those rules and was fined $7,500 for a single Twitter message. What awful thing did he say? Well, he was actually just happy about a victory:
    "Back to 500. Yess!!! "500" means where doing good. Way to Play Hard Guys."
    Seems like the sort of thing the NBA should be encouraging. It's a nice connection with fans, who feel that they're getting in on some of the excitement from a player they like. So, what was the problem? Well, the NBA "rules" say no Twittering until after the media sessions are done after the game. So, basically, he was too anxious to spread the excitement to his fans. And this is fine-worthy? It's hard to make sense of a policy that tells players not to connect with fans, and not to let them in on the excitement.

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    ]]>     seems-a-bit-pricey http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091218/1813257435     Wed, 4 Mar 2009 05:06:00 PST IP Issues Force Basketball To Back Down From Krypto-Nate Promotion Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090303/0054513955.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090303/0054513955.shtml until issues surrounding potential fights with DC Comics, owners of certain IP around Superman, came into play. The story isn't entirely clear concerning who made the final decision to back down from the promotion -- and, it may have just been folks at the NBA hoping to do future deals with DC Comics -- but the planned promotion was clearly shelved and worries about IP issues were the apparent reason. It's not clear that DC Comics would have had any actual legal claim on such a shirt, but just the fact that IP worries over such an obvious and reasonable promotion caused it to be killed (once again) highlights the ridiculous impact of IP laws gone nuts.

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    ]]>     seriously? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090303/0054513955     Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:28:00 PDT Why A Crackdown On Gambling Isn't The Answer To The NBA's Corruption Woes Joseph Weisenthal http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070727/084503.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070727/084503.shtml gambling on games that he was officiating. The claims have yet to be proven, but the official has already resigned from the league. NBA commissioner David Stern has called this an isolated incident, but at the same time is calling for a greater crackdown on illegal sports betting. The league could employ advanced statistical monitoring techniques to determine whether its referees have suspicious foul-calling patterns, although it would be difficult to prove anything definitive. In a New York Times op-ed, economist Justin Wolfers makes the contrarian argument that the solution is to lift anti-gambling laws that are in place throughout much of the country. Because sports betting is illegal in most areas, the industry is dominated by organized criminals, whose modus operandi is point shaving, the practice of paying players and refs to affect the final score of the game, but not actually the outcome, in order beat the Vegas spread. To those who participate in it, it feels like a harmless crime, since they're not actually throwing the game itself. Legalizing sports betting would help solve this problem as organized crime would have little to gain by operating in this business (customers would just go to legal, safer alternatives). Some entities may still opt to bet on games and then attempt to influence them, but as all betting would go through legitimate enterprises, suspicious activity is much more likely to get reported. Thus, while it sounds nice to "get tough" on gambling, it's the fact that we're already tough on it that's causing the problems.

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    ]]>     if-gambling-is-outlawed-only-outlaws-will-gamble http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20070727/084503