Hope MLB Doesn’t Take the Shirt off his Back
Politics and baseball are reasonably similar. Both are games played all across the country by talented partisans. Both are particularly American institutions.
An MBA student at the Wharton School has sought to bring them closer together by sharing a passion for Barack Obama through t-shirts featuring the candidate’s name in the style of MLB team names. The shirts sold for $19.99 on the Web site ObamaofDreams.com until last month when the site’s owner received a cease-and-desist letter from attorneys for baseball.
Baseball protects its business interests very closely and this situation is just another example. A court battle in 2006 ensued over whether baseball had copyright rights over the statistics of its players when used in fantasy baseball leagues. The judge ultimately ruled against the very broad interpretation of copyright law that the league’s lawyers tried to defend. Likewise in this case, it is not clear that any trademark infringement occurred since there may not be a likelihood of confusion between baseball shirts and pieces of propaganda for political candidates. Copyright claims are also not straightforward in this case. But a small-time vendor isn’t going to fight.
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