On: When Sports Betting Is Legal, the Value of Game Da...

[rusk]

As it stands, I believe you own copyright for that data. You've gathered it, composed it and published it. That's what's copyrighted.

Somebody else could independently gather that data, produce alternative, even identical results and their work would be copyright.

I am not a lawyer but that's how I understand it.

[ncallaway → rusk]

This is how other factual data copyrights tend to work (such as maps and phone books).

It's not a copyright violation to collect and share the same information. It _is_ a copyright violation to simply copy and republish the data from a given source.

So how can a map-maker tell that someone copied them instead of collecting their own information? They insert watermarks in the form of inaccurate data (such as inserting a small city that doesn't actually exist). See: https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmodo.com/the-fake-places-tha... and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry.

I wonder what kind of fictious entry you could inject into sports data that wouldn't compromise the quality of the data too severely?

[happyopossum → ncallaway]

Sports data would be pretty easy to watermark - a fictional athlete here, a score for a game never played there, etc. none of it would ever be fully guaranteed to not cause someone a problem some day - “no dude, I swear the 1968 lakers played a pre-season game against the pistons and lost 123-98” - but there’s enough data that you could watermark it.

[rusk → ncallaway]

Well there's also watermarking for images too right? The idea is that you embed a subtle pattern to the data which only becomes apparent when you apply a particular filter. This apparently operates in such a way as not to compromise the visible image so presumably sports data could be jimmied similarly.

[paulie_a → rusk]

This annoying navigation of copyright law is why I simply ignore it entirely. Copyright is irrelevant in my world view.