About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

21 J. Legal Aspects Sport 43 (2011-2012)
The Over-Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Sport in the United States and Elsewhere

handle is hein.journals/jlas21 and id is 45 raw text is: The Over-Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Sport in the United States and Elsewhere* J. GORDON HYLTON Marquette University Law School In the modem era intellectual property rights have become a major source of revenue for the sports industry. Legal theories of copyright, trademark, right of publicity, and even patent have been successfully invoked to permit individual sports teams and the leagues and associations to which they belong to capture more and more revenue from their fans. Broadcasting rights have enabled the operators of teams and competitions to play before millions of spectators who are present vicariously rather than physically. Teams and leagues enter into lucrative licensing agreements for their logos and trademarks with a wide variety of manufacturers of consumer products, and athletes continually find new ways to capitalize on their image and publicity rights. As a consequence of these developments, multi-billion dollar broadcasting contracts have become the norm in the world of sport. In the United States, the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the men's football and basketball divisions of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) all have annual broadcasting revenues in excess of one billion dollars. Even larger amounts of revenue are generated by the licensing of team trademarks and service marks-the supposedly amateur NCAA alone generates more than $3 billion dollars a year from such sources-and individual athletes reap multi-million dollars contracts for the licensing of their images.' As NFL executive vice-president and legal counsel An earlier version of this article was presented at the Arab Sports Lex Sportiva, held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, April 23-24, 2010. This conference, sponsored by the Sharm El Sheikh International Arbitration Centre, was the first sports law conference held in the Arab world. 1. For a recent discussion of broadcasting contracts in the United States, see MATTHEW MITTEN, TIMOTHY DAVIS, RODNEY SMITH, & ROBERT BERRY, SPORTS LAW AND REGULATION: CASES, MATERIALS, AND PROBLEMS 1023-1024 (2nd ed. 2009).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most