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I am thinking of creating a sports blog, and would like to know if you need permission from a team or the league to write this blog. For example if I am writing a article about the Philadelphia Phillies would I need to obtain permission from the team to write that article? It is worth noting that I would be using AdSense to generate revenue from views of the blog, but not charging people money to view the blog.

I don't know if this matters but I live in PA.

I am going to be writing about different stats and statistics for different sports teams, but I'm not sure if I can use the team names or player's names without infringing on copyright.

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  • Presently unclear: What are the works you think might be protected by copyright that you are considering copying to your blog?
    – feetwet ♦
    Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 21:14
  • @feetwet i will be writing something along the lines of "The Philadelphia Philies last ten first round draft picks have done this..." and want to know if I can write about the Phillies without their permission.
    – tygrim
    Commented Apr 30, 2017 at 23:13

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Team names and player names are facts, and therefore not protected by copyright. Even if they would have been, names are the normal way to refer to people and sports teams. This would have given you an additional "fair use" defense.

(The difference is that the first argument says it's not forbidden by copyright law, and the second argument says it would be allowed by copyright law.)

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  • Additionally, while names can be protected by trademark, analogous "fair use" concepts allow one to mention a protected name like the Phillies.
    – user6726
    Commented May 1, 2017 at 15:05
  • IIRC in trademark law that would be nominative use. The goal of trademark law is to disallow the use of brand names for illegitimate copies, but a protected name may still be used to refer to the real deal.
    – MSalters
    Commented May 1, 2017 at 18:19
  • @user6726, sorry but i know nothing about this, being a web developer, but you are saying that i can write a blog, about the phillies, or the eagles, or really any sports team, and profit off it, using adsense, without getting sued or in any trouble?
    – tygrim
    Commented May 2, 2017 at 0:13
  • Although you asked about copyright, people often think that names are copyrightable, which they are not. There is protection for names, in the form of trademark registration, but what you are doing falls under nominative use, which is like "fair use" for copyright. As long as you're not trying to pass the blog off as being the official Phillies blog (if there is such a thing), such use is allowed.
    – user6726
    Commented May 2, 2017 at 0:24
  • @user6726 so what exactly is nominative use?
    – tygrim
    Commented May 2, 2017 at 0:33

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