Digital Media

Yahoo's StatTracker, a premium service, provides fantasy team owners statistical updates on players moments after they're involved in plays (click image for closer look).

(Credit: Yahoo)

Yahoo has filed a lawsuit against the NFL Players Association, contending that it shouldn't be forced to pay royalties for using players' names, statistics, and photos in its online fantasy football game because the information is publicly available.

The complaint (PDF), which was filed Monday in U.S. District Court for Minnesota, alleges that the players group has threatened to sue the Internet giant if it doesn't pay licensing fees for the information. Yahoo had licensing agreements with the players union for previous football seasons, but the last of those deals expired on March 1, according to the complaint.

Yahoo claims it no longer needs the union's permission to use the players' information, citing an April court decision in a similar case between the players group and CBS Interactive (the parent company of CNET). The court in that case found that CBS Interactive didn't have to pay for use of football players' names or statistics because the information was already in the public domain. The players association is currently appealing that decision.

Major League Baseball lost a similar case in 2007 to CBC Distribution and Marketing--a Missouri company that sells fantasy sports products via the Web, e-mail, regular mail, and phone. MLB's Internet media arm, later joined by the pro-baseball players' union, had claimed that CBC was using baseball players' names and statistics without a license, thereby violating the players' rights to publicity under state intellectual property laws.

CBC won at the district court level and again at the appeals court level, which held that the company's "first amendment rights in offering its fantasy baseball products supersede the players' rights of publicity."

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that Yahoo's fantasy game business does not violate any rights of publicity owned or controlled by the players group, and prevent the players group from interfering with or threatening Yahoo's fantasy game business.

As many as 15 million people participate in fantasy football leagues, generating more than $1 billion a year in revenue, according to court documents filed in that case.

Carl Francis, director of communications for the NFL Players Association, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Of all the sports leagues, Major League Baseball has the reputation of being the most technologically savvy. On Thursday, MLB proved it by winning its first tech patent.

Bob Bowman says baseball couldn't stream games without subscriber-locating system.

(Credit: Major League Baseball Advanced Media)

The league's digital unit, Major League Baseball Advanced Media(MLBAM), announced on Thursday that it was granted patent No. 7,486,943 for a system that helps determine a subscriber's geographical location. MLBAM oversees MLB.tv, the online video distribution service that streams live and on-demand games, and is widely considered to be the most successful subscription business on the Internet.

Pinpointing where a subscriber is located when he or she logs on to watch a game is necessary to avoid violating "blackout rules." TV stations all over the nation purchase exclusive broadcast rights from the clubs that cover highly specific geographical areas. MLBAM's system enables the service to locate where subscribers are logging on and block them from receiving streaming video of a game if they are located in a region where a TV broadcaster has the exclusive rights to show the game.

Sure, the blackout rules frustrate plenty of sports fans, but without baseball's subscriber-locating system, MLBAM would be prevented from streaming games over the Web, said the company's CEO, Bob Bowman.

Baseball finds MLB.tv users via a system that combines several different pieces of tracking software. Quova, based in Mountain View, Calif., contributes with software that helps determine a person's network address. The software makes a series of best guesses and assigns a confidence factor to the estimate. MLBAM will then use other sources, such as payment data, to close in on a person's local.

Some subscribers of Major League Baseball's streaming-video service are complaining that the new player, powered by Adobe Flash, isn't ready for the big leagues.

After receiving plenty of favorable reviews from technology blogs, some MLB.com subscribers have complained about stuttering and stalling video while watching on Monday, opening day for baseball. Some of the same problems continued on Tuesday, according to reports. Subscribers of MLB.com's GameDay Audio service also reported that archived games haven't been accessible since Monday.

The irony is that Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), the unit that oversees the streaming service, discontinued using Microsoft's Silverlight player because of chronic glitches and disagreements over how the player should function, CNET reported on Monday. In the story, Bob Bowman, CEO of MLBAM declined to go into detail about why he dropped Microsoft but said baseball is engaged in an ongoing dispute with Microsoft "because of the significant problems" the league encountered last year.

"I wonder how long before Adobe gets the boot," Timothy Thorson told CNET. Thorson said he is a longtime MLB.com subscriber and listens to the games from his home in Germany, where he works as a pianist and translator. "Baseball is one of the things I miss most about the U.S. There are others like me who get up in the morning and want to listen to the game and now we can't."

The glitches affected less than 1 percent of the company's 500,000 subscribers and were not caused by Adobe's player, said Matt Gould, MLBAM's spokesman. Gould added that as of Wednesday evening, eight games were in progress and three were completed and there were no complaints. "We didn't bat 1.000 on opening day, but there are 2,200 games remaining in the major league season. We look forward to providing the most engaging high-def experience for our subscribers."

Adobe said in a statement: "We've been in regular contact with MLB.com, and have heard nothing but praise about the Flash platform."

Gould said the malfunctions were relatively minor and were far fewer and less severe than last season, when many subscribers were unable to even log in. That was when MLB.com was using Silverlight. Gould said that delivering true high-definition streaming video is a complex task and baseball is only now working out the kinks because it couldn't fully test the video feeds from major league ballparks until opening day. Teams don't play in their home stadiums during spring training.

"We've had very small window to do end-to-end testing," Gould said.

As I discussed the situation with Gould on the phone, Charlie Wagner, a CNET photographer overheard me. He told me he was prevented from seeing a ninth-inning rally by his favorite team, the Minnesota Twins, Tuesday night when his MLB.com video player broke down.

"The video froze on me in the ninth inning," said Wagner, who has subscribed to the service for three years. "I couldn't see the finish until ESPN came on... I was mad."

Despite the problems, he Wagner said he thinks the picture quality is better.

As for Silverlight, the company declined to comment but on a blog post, Steve Sklepowich, a Microsoft executive, did challenge one of Bowman's assertions about Adobe. Bowman suggested that Adobe was a better fit for baseball because of Flash's wide consumer adoption.

"While Flash 9 may have high penetration," Sklepowich wrote, "the Swarmcast NexDef plug-in that helps power MLB's HD experience has virtually no adoption. Ubiquity here is a red herring. What customers really want are high quality solutions. Silverlight has been doing that since its inception and already supports the ability to deliver true HD using IIS Smooth Streaming with no additional plug-in required."

Perhaps Bowman described the situation best this week when he said that streaming video on the Web isn't as trustworthy yet as television. "You turn on the TV and it just works," he said. "(Internet video) still has a ways to go."

Screenshot from MLB.com's new Flash player.

(Credit: MLB.com)

The thwacking sounds of bats striking balls will once again fill stadiums, as Monday is opening day for Major League Baseball. This year, Microsoft will watch from the sidelines.

MLB.com no longer uses Microsoft's Silverlight to stream games to its 500,000 subscribers. This season fans will watch live and on-demand video via Adobe's Flash player.

In November, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the league's tech unit, announced it would discontinue using Silverlight, the browser plug-in that MLBAM had signed up for barely a year earlier. The decision was not insignificant. MLBAM not only runs the profitable MLB.com streaming-video service, the Web's most successful subscription service, but the group is also influential with other leagues and sporting events. MLBAM handles much of the back-end operations for CBS' Webcasts of the NCAA Basketball Tournament and this year will do the encoding for the 2009 Masters golf tournament (CBS is the parent company CNET News).

Baseball never detailed the reasons for dropping Silverlight but sources close to the negotiations between the league and Microsoft said it was a series of glitches and conflicts between the companies that led to the split.

First, baseball wanted Microsoft to make it possible for users to download Silverlight without having to possess administrative rights. When people are at work, it's often the company that possesses those rights and employees would need authorization to download the player. That frustrated plenty of MLB.com subscribers, according to the sources.

The other major issue was that baseball considered Silverlight too unstable. There were some high-profile glitches, including last year's opening day, which saw many MLB.com subscribers struggling to log in and others who were unable to watch games. The malfunctions lasted several days. The rift between Microsoft and MLBAM began to grow and hasn't stopped, said the sources, adding that lawyers for each side are still arguing over Microsoft's responsibility.

Through a spokeswoman, Microsoft declined to comment but did point us to plenty of other sporting events for which Silverlight was chosen, including NBC's Webcast of the 2008 Summer Games and CBS's online presentation of the NCAA basketball tournament. NBC also recently announced that it will broadcast the 2010 Vancouver Olympics using Silverlight.

But Silverlight was also suspected by many Netflix users of being the cause for a recent series of glitches that occurred with Netflix's streaming-video service. Microsoft appeared to acknowledge that its player was the cause of at least some problems when it said last month that Silverlight 3 could help Netflix customers who run lower-end computers and were experiencing dropped frames and poor viewing quality. Netflix has said that most of the feedback on Silverlight is positive.

Bob Bowman, MLBAM CEO, also declined to detail what happened with Silverlight. He did, however, acknowledge that MLBAM "has an ongoing dispute with Microsoft because of the significant problems we encountered last year." What Bowman wanted to discuss was Adobe Flash and the successful marriage of baseball and the Internet.

Q: How much better is your video player this year?
Bowman: The experience has been everything that we did not have a year ago...Nobody has seen true high-def before on the Web. (With this year's player) you can put it on any screen you want, there's no degradation at all. It has all the bells and whistles, picture-to-picture, DVR-quality pause, rewind, fast-forward, real-time highlights. The meat-and-potatoes of it of course is the picture quality itself and it is eye popping."

Q: How come your on-demand video subscription service appears to be more profitable than the other leagues?
Bowman: The nature of our game, we play every day, we have fans who watch us on Tuesday, talk about us on Wednesday, listen to us on Thursday and maybe go see us on Friday. They touch baseball every day. They just do it in different ways based on how much time they have. Today's society, the interactive-digital society, can stay in touch with baseball better than they've ever done before. That keeps getting better. The iPhone's MLB At-Bat application is one example of that.

It isn't because we're different or smarter. Baseball is just better. It's better suited for this kind of daily, hourly interactive conversation. Then you get the video and people have 15 minutes. You better give them the very best product you have.

Bob Bowman, CEO of baseball's technology unit

(Credit: Major League Baseball Advanced Media)

Q: How much harder and more expensive is it to do high-definition streaming?
Bowman: First of all it's based upon what the park does. Probably only 70 percent of the games are in true high-def. About 30 percent of the games aren't in high def even on your TV. It's roughly doubling in terms of the costs. The infrastructure is more certainly more expensive obviously. But the daily coding and redistributing almost doubles the cost. It isn't arithmetic. As you know the video is even more than doubling, but you get rates and expenses by the time you're done it roughly doubles the cost.

Presumably the costs will come down. They are certainly moving in that direction for the last several years. But for us it was a relatively straight-forward decision to give our fans the very best.

Q: What did you see in Flash that impressed you?
Bowman: You see several things. You see a high-grade product that's in some form on 99 percent of the browsers. You've got something that's got mass usage. Secondly you see with Adobe a company committed to the customer experience in video with the Flash Player. We see a partner that continues to invest in their product. They have the same desire that we do. They want the Flash Player to be the best thing anybody has ever seen and we want that. When you partner with people like that, it's not a philosophical discussion. We know where we want to be now how do we get there.

Netflix is trying to locate the source of a series of glitches that some users of the company's streaming service are blaming on Microsoft's Silverlight video player.

Over the weekend, a steady stream of angry messages was posted to Netflix's blog. The complaints range from choppy video, to audio that doesn't sync with the picture, to grainy image quality.

The complaints began accumulating soon after the Web's largest video-rental service switched to Microsoft's Silverlight in November. The posts appear to have trickled in until last weekend, when a score of customers began reporting problems.

"The quality of the video looks like bad VHS," wrote someone on the Netflix who identified themselves as Steve-O. "I use an Acer Netbook over my home network and the quality is poor. Also, I cannot even see the button to make the video full screen (using Acer One Netbook with Firefox browser). However, I imagine this will make the quality even worse. What a disaster."

Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said the company, which now has more than 10 million subscribers, has yet to pinpoint the cause of the malfunctions. He added that only a small percentage of customers have complained but that the company continues to look for a fix.

Swasey defended Silverlight. He said the company has received mostly kudos from customers after switching to the software last fall. A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment.

"The new player is far better," Swasey said. "It's faster, more reliable and provides greater stability. The vast majority of Netflix members have had a great experience."

The other major complaint from Netflix customers who posted to the company blog this weekend is that it wasn't made clear there was no way to opt out once they switched to the Silverlight player.

"I certainly feel that Netflix was not forthright in getting me to 'upgrade' to the new viewer (Silverlight)," said someone who posted under the name Jerry. "I don't have a beef with Microsoft. I'll support most technologies that work appropriately--and that is where we have come to a problem. The new viewer simply does not work well enough."

Silverlight has received mixed reviews in the past year. NBC chose Silverlight to stream video of the 2008 Summer Olympics and the company won some favorable reviews. For the games' opening ceremony, Silverlight helped deliver more than 70 million page views in one evening.

But after the conclusion of the games, NBC went back to using Flash. Another setback for Microsoft came when Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the group that streams baseball games over the Web, decided to drop Silverlight.

Microsoft is losing MLB.com, Major League Baseball's online unit and one of the Web's most successful subscription services, as a Silverlight customer.

MLB Advanced Media said Monday it will use Adobe's Flash Platform to deliver all live and on-demand video starting next year.

The deal, announced at the Adobe Max conference running in San Francisco this week, hands Adobe one of the largest and likely most profitable video services out there. MLB.com has signed up more than 1.5 million subscribers since 2003 and streams more than 2,500 regular and postseason games annually. Moreover, MLBAM has been a technological leader and is influential among Web video services.

"Microsoft has appreciated the partnership of MLB.com," said Microsoft Vice President Scott Guthrie. "Microsoft continues to be very pleased with the success of Silverlight. We have a great ecosystem that includes more than 150 partners."

Adobe's Flash Player is by far the largest video platform, installed on more than 98 percent of Web-connected content, the company said.

"Flash provides a TV-like experience. You turn it on and it works," said Bob Bowman, president and CEO of MLBAM. "We want it to be flexible so we can add features...and it's got to be scalable. We are the largest server of live entertainment in the country. Whether we are serving 20,000 for one game or 250,000 for another game, it's got to be scalable over periods of time like nothing else."

Bowman was tight-lipped when asked to provide specifics for how Adobe's Flash outperforms Microsoft Silverlight. "I'm going to reserve all my comments on Silverlight and suggest any comments I have, positive or negative, will be discussed at a later date."

Adobe's news comes on the same day that Guthrie posted a blog announcing a few details on Silverlight 3, which is due out next year.

Click here for more news on Adobe's Max conference.

The CNET Redballers are off to a good start in the online game 'Baseball Boss' against the 1907 Brooklyn Superbas, soon to be known as the Dodgers.

(Credit: Baseballboss.com)

A new online baseball game may finally help put to rest an age-old debate: how would Babe Ruth do at the plate facing Nolan Ryan's fastball?

That is the kind of scenario that may be possible soon with Baseball Boss, a free browser-based game released Thursday that combines fantasy sports with virtual baseball card collecting. The game allows fantasy managers to build teams with Major League Baseball players from 1907 and 2007 (more years will be added later) that can play other user-created teams or even historical teams such as the 1907 Brooklyn Superbas. Instead of focusing on stat categories such as stolen bases and home runs, this game cobbles together the entire team's likely performance to give you a final game score.

When managers register for a team, they are assigned 40 players, which are represented by trading cards. From that team, managers can trade for other cards with other managers, purchase cards at auction from other managers using points earned from wins, or purchase premium card packs with real money. My team featured a bunch of players I had not heard of or barely remembered, but presumably (after their career years are added) one could eventually acquire players such as Cy Young, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, or Alex Rodriguez. Even Pete Rose would be a good bet.

This is truly a casual game that can be played in a few minutes rather than the week-long contests that most fantasy baseball managers are used to. Managers make challenges and games are played in about 5 to 15 minutes--managers don't even have to be online while the game is under way. The computer determines the winner of each game based on chance and actual player statistics. Results appear immediately, presenting box scores and inning-by-inning play on how the teams did, or managers can choose to watch the game unfold on the diamond via Flash.

The use of the players was made possible through a multiyear licensing deal with Major League Baseball Advanced Media with creator Challenge Online Games, which announced a $4.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital on Thursday. Challenge Online games is also the creator of the role-paying game Duels.

This game is billed as a nostalgic twist on online fantasy baseball play, which, like real baseball has gone through many incarnations in the past three decades. On one side are the baseball cards, which used to be for kids; we would trade, flip, or toss for them with our friends until we got the cards of our favorite players. Then, thanks to free agency and the designated hitter, national interest in baseball, and subsequently baseball trading cards, suffered in the 1970s.

Starting in the late-'80s, thanks perhaps in part to Kevin Costner movies and steroids, fans rediscovered the game, and a decade later, the rotisserie baseball leagues tracked in three-ring binders were replaced by online drag-and-drop fantasy baseball leagues.

In that spirit of rediscovery, this game may create baseball fans out of casual gamers, while offering a chance to reminisce to those of us who have been wearing a spongy index finger since childhood.

As for the great Ruth and Ryan debate, you will have to find out for yourself. As the saying goes, that's why we play the games.