{"id":5829,"date":"2018-12-21T15:03:39","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T19:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=5829"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:29","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:29","slug":"online-betting-and-the-right-to-publicity-the-indiana-supreme-court-rules-against-former-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/online-betting-and-the-right-to-publicity-the-indiana-supreme-court-rules-against-former-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Betting and The Right to Publicity: The Indiana Supreme Court Rules Against Former Athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Indiana Supreme Court recently\nruled in Daniels v. FanDuel <\/em>that daily\nfantasy sports (DFS) sites can use \u201cthe\nnames and statistics of college football players without [their] consent and\ncompensation<\/a>.\u201d DFS sites facilitate in\ngame wagering<\/a>, \u201ca popular form of betting that involves teams and\nindividual players\u201d. A football bettor, for example, could wager during a game\non whether a specific receiver is going to catch a touchdown. <\/p>\n\n\n

The plaintiffs in the case were former Indiana University football player Nick Stoner and two former players from Northern Illinois<\/a>. The former NCAA athletes argued that the defendants, FanDuel and DraftKings, were violating Indiana\u2019s \u201cright to publicity\u201d<\/a> laws by using the names, pictures, and statistics of college athletes in order to facilitate in game betting between their users. In turn, R. Stanton Dodge, DraftKings\u2019 chief legal officer, issued a statement saying \u201csports statistics \u2013 and the ability for all fans to freely access them \u2013 have always been at the center of the American sports fan experience.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

…fantasy sports operators\u2026do not violate the Indiana right to publicity statute when those organizations use the names, pictures, and statistics of players without their consent because the use falls within… an exception to the statue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

Indiana\u2019s right to publicity statute criminalizes the unauthorized use of a person\u2019s name, image, likeness, or other unequivocal aspect of one\u2019s identity \u201cwithout having obtained previous written consent to do so.\u201d The Indiana Supreme Court unanimously held that the defendants were not violating the plaintiffs\u2019 right to publicity. Justice Steven David delivered the court\u2019s opinion: \u201cfantasy sports operators\u2026do not violate the Indiana right to publicity statute when those organizations use the names, pictures, and statistics of players without their consent because the use falls within the meaning of \u2018material that has newsworthy value,\u2019 an exception to the statue.\u201d In short, Justice David and the other justices of the Indiana Supreme Court did not find a difference between the information on the defendants\u2019 websites and \u201cthe publication of the same information in newspapers and websites across the nation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

The ruling is a \u201cbig setback\u201d<\/a> for athletes as legal sports betting continues to expand nationally. With in-game sports betting becoming more prominent, sports leagues and players\u2019 unions \u201care seeking legislative control\u201d over the information that FanDuel and DraftKings are currently freely using. Sports leagues and players\u2019 unions are trying to gain a slice of the pie when it comes to the profits that DFS sites are generating. However, for now, the information that DFS sites rely on \u201cis not stripped of its newsworthy value simply because it is placed behind a paywall or used in the context of a fantasy sports game.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n

The plaintiffs may choose to appeal the Indiana Supreme Court\u2019s decision to the Seventh Circuit, though, the Seventh Circuit \u201cwill certainly use [Daniels v. FanDuel<\/em>] to inform\u201d their own decision, which makes it \u201cclose to a foregone conclusion\u201d that Justice David\u2019s ruling will stand. Initially, the plaintiffs \u201cfiled suit in a state court,\u201d but the defendants successfully moved the case to federal court. The federal court in Indianapolis dismissed the case because they believed the information in question was covered by the statute\u2019s newsworthiness exception. The plaintiffs appealed to the Seventh Circuit, where the case was \u201ckicked down\u201d to the Indiana Supreme Court due to a lack of precedent cases on the matter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Indiana Supreme Court recently ruled in Daniels v. FanDuel that daily fantasy sports (DFS) sites can use \u201cthe names and statistics of college football players without [their] consent and compensation.\u201d DFS sites facilitate in game wagering, \u201ca popular form of betting that involves teams and individual players\u201d. A football bettor, for example, could wager …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6891,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5829\/revisions\/6891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}