Beckett Attacks Again

Once again Beckett is doing what they can to damage the hobby for collectors with a recent lawsuit filed against the card organization web site Zistle claiming copyright infringement under the 1976 Copyright Act. Beckett is seeking actual damages, which they claim to be $5,000 plus attorney fees. Additionally they seek a temporary and permanent restraint from further infringement on their copyrighted works. I have included a <LINK> for the actual case documents that Beckett filed.

The heart of the issue is that Beckett claims that Zistle is copying their checklists to update the Zistle database. At this point Josh and Ashley, the founders of Zistle, have not responded because the case is still pending. While Beckett filed the case and included certificates showing their copyright registration certificates they have not provided any proof of the copyright infringement covered under the certificates.

I am not a lawyer and I am a member of both Beckett and Zistle’s communities, but I think this is just the big dog trying to keep control of the backyard. Zistle’s database is updated by the site’s members and I am sure that some people have done a straight copy and paste from Beckett’s checklists but the question remains is how is a simple written list copyrighted?

I was reading up on the story on Cardboard Connection and Paul Lesko supplied a similar case from 1991, Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., which dealt with phone books and the U.S. Supreme Court established that information without a minimum of creativity cannot be copyrighted.

When you consider that Beckett lists the cards in the set, and yes they do add codes like “RC” and “ERR.”, it is still information without creativity. The nitty gritty of it is that Beckett’s checklist is no different than a phone book listing, a song list, a batter’s lineup or a list of courses available at a local university. Sure the design of the booklet that the information is listed in may be copyrighted but the list itself is just information.

 

I hope this case goes away, I use Zistle almost daily to keep my card collection organized and track my wants/needs and trades. I would be extremely disappointed to see Zistle shut down over checklists.

Andrew Luck Versus Leaf Trading Cards

On April 13^th Andrew Luck’s attorney sent a cease and desist order to Leaf Trading Cards demanding that the company stop selling/producing cards of Andrew Luck from the 2008 Army All-American Bowl.

It seems that Luck’s attorney missed an important detail, Leaf has an exclusive license with SportsLink, the company that produces the Army All-American Bowl, which allows them to use the names, likeness, images and intellectual property of players in the game and this includes alumni players from previous bowls.

Leaf, in return, has filed their own lawsuit against Andrew Luck to assert their rights to continue producing cards of Luck from the All-American Bowl.

Considering that Leaf has the exclusive license to all players in the game I do not see much coming from this besides a declaratory judgment for Leaf allowing them to continue selling the cards. I do not think it will matter much though because in a few days after Luck is selected #1 by the Colts in the NFL Draft people will turn their attention to officially licensed cards of Andrew Luck.

Leaf Responds To Topps Lawsuit

Recently Topps filed a lawsuit against Leaf because of the inclusion of graded Topps cards in Leaf's Best of Baseball release. Leaf and Brian Gray have responded according to the Facebook page:

Leaf Trading Cards, LLC has filed a counterclaim against The Topps Company, Inc. seeking a declaratory judgment, actual damages, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs. These claims were filed along with an answer to Topps’ complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York regarding the marketing and sale of Leaf’s 2011 “Best of Baseball” product. Brian Gray, Leaf’s President stated that “Leaf respects the intellectual property rights of its competitors, but Topps’ lawsuit is a wrongful attempt to exercise monopolistic control in the trading card industry. Leaf is entitled to advertise products by displaying images of products that we legally acquired and are entitled to sell. We are confident that the court will vindicate our business practices.”

Additionally, Brian Gray said “Leaf respects the intellectual property rights of its competitors, but Topps’ lawsuit is a wrongful attempt to exercise monopolistic control in the trading card industry. Leaf is entitled to advertise products by displaying images of products that we legally acquired and are entitled to sell. We are confident that the court will vindicate our business practices.”

Being a graphic designer I have worked with copyrights, I have copyrighted designs and I have worked with copyrighted images and graphics both in personal projects as well as “Work for hire” projects. I actually just did a study and research paper recently on the copyright laws in comparison to public-domain and fair use laws in regards to artistic work.

The problem that Topps will have is that Leaf is not advertising that they created the Topps product nor are they including the name Topps in any of the pre-sales information/copy. They even clearly state “Graded” and “Graded/Slabbed” and do not list any corporate names. Yes they do include images of the Topps cards (which may be a sticking point for Topps) but they purchased these cards on the secondary-market and as an end-user have the legal right to sell them as long as the product is represented properly. Think of this as you selling a Topps card on eBay, you can list Topps in the title and description and you can include an image of the card as long as you do not attempt to make claim to creating the design or create a new product and list it as a Topps creation.

The only thing that may come out of this, on Topps side, would be the requirement that Leaf remove any images of Topps product from their sales materials but I would be floored if a judge issues an order halting Leaf from selling the product or removing Topps cards from the release. If anything harsher were to happen it would set precident that potentially could handcuff dealers, retailers and even people selling items on eBay or at auction. We would be at the mercy of Topps’ legal team, which could get as bad as an Orwellian society forcing us to request permission to list a Topps product for sale.

Really... Carlos Delgado even?

The hobby does not need another black eye but here we go anyway. According to a recent report, Carlos Delgado filled a $2.4 million lawsuit against a couple memorabilia dealers. According to the release Delgado signed a contract with 4 men who run a shop on Long Island where the men agreed to sell roughly $400,000 worth of Delgado’s autographed and used memorabilia but instead kept the merchandise for themselves and never paid Delgado for the items.

I understand collecting can be a compulsion but honestly stealing items from a player under the guise of selling the items and under contract no less. This is a situation where these men need to look back and consider if it was worth stealing $400k worth of items from Delgado and in turn end up paying out on a potential $2.4 million lawsuit?