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Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

theathletic.com

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Re: Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

#21

Post by _jxdz »

notahacker wrote: post #19
_jxdz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal argument appears to be: 1. There have been breaches of data protection law (GDPR as implemented in the Data Protection Act 2018), e.g. players did not consent to data transfer, the data isn't accurate, etc. and it's done on a commercial basis. 2. These breaches were injurious to the economic prospects of the affected players and therefore damages should be awarded. I would imagine that the cause of action w…

I think the challenge will be persuading courts that actions that users are paid to undertake in public and contractually agreed to reassign relevant image rights to are [i] 'personal data' under the intended meaning of GDPR and that [ii] something they didn't have informed consent about the possibility third parties might have access to when signing those contracts. Proving actual instances of harm suffered from the…

Yes, I quite agree that the prospect of success appears remote. They would have an arguable case for negligence regarding data inaccuracy though, so I wouldn't be surprised if they submit that as an additional claim and abandon the GDPR claim if that seems likely to fail.

Re: Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

#22

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

pulse7 wrote: post #14

Apple also has a nice statistics of >>all used apps on Macs<< since 2017 - every app start is reported back to apple. One could see from such stat what is being used more, what is being used less and then make business decisions... Maybe somebody will sue in the future...

It actually depends on if this data is maintained at an individual level and is personally identifiable. This data is almost certainly deidentified in Apple's case, which would make GDPR not applicable.

Re: Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

#23

Post by javajosh »

haubey wrote: post #7

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm especially not a British lawyer, but I do have an Athletic subscription. The article discusses a lawsuit on behalf of Primer League and mostly lower league soccer players in England around their "personal data." > More than 400 current and former players have signed up to pursue gaming, betting and data-processing companies who utilise their personal statistics without consent or compensatio…

I think another argument is that the game is enjoyed in many forms, over radio, over television, streamed over the internet - and all of those rights must be purchased, etc. If the game statistics are another form of enjoyment, then it is another form, and should be subject to the same ownership issues as the other channels.

OTOH, I think the argument is very weak. First, precedent is strongly against the players here. Player stats have never been licensed to my knowledge. It's not clear if this is for lack of trying, or if the market for that data used to be superfans, and it was too small to matter.

That said, in any argument I tend to side with the underdog. I think it would be great if Athletic voluntarily shared some of their revenue with players! It would be a good move for them, because it would take wind out of the sails of the counter-parties, and it wouldn't acknowledge the players right to their data, except tacitly.

Re: Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

#24

Post by Retric »

notahacker wrote: post #19
_jxdz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal argument appears to be: 1. There have been breaches of data protection law (GDPR as implemented in the Data Protection Act 2018), e.g. players did not consent to data transfer, the data isn't accurate, etc. and it's done on a commercial basis. 2. These breaches were injurious to the economic prospects of the affected players and therefore damages should be awarded. I would imagine that the cause of action w…

I think the challenge will be persuading courts that actions that users are paid to undertake in public and contractually agreed to reassign relevant image rights to are [i] 'personal data' under the intended meaning of GDPR and that [ii] something they didn't have informed consent about the possibility third parties might have access to when signing those contracts. Proving actual instances of harm suffered from the…

I think betting is likely to have an unusually negative economic impact on the players. Loss avoidance means people are more likely to remember players ‘underperforming’ expectations than exceeding them. That’s going to have a negative impact on their marketability as paid sponsors independent of actual performance.

It’s questionable if they can win, but demonstrating damages may be the easiest part of this case.

Re: Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

#26

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

bzb6 wrote: post #5
throwaway2245 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have access to the article but they'll surely be suing on GDPR grounds, for unpermissioned use of personal data, not the copyright (which, I agree, they probably won't hold). It's akin to an employer now tracking 24/7 whether you are sat at your home office desk (in my view: this shouldn't be allowed, with or without permission).

These are football players playing matches in public and the statistics are trivial I imagine, like how many passes they make and stuff like that, no? This seems like they just want free money and I hope they lose

If they win, instead the firms could simply give them the rights to remove their data, which honestly none of them would exercise. Not being in the professional sports statistics databases is worse, even for poorly performing players, as it implies that aren't famous or noteworthy enough to be included. Under GDPR a person doesn't get to cherry pick which data to delete right? Either you request all your data to be deleted by a firm or you don't, right?

GDPR clearly needs an exemption for anything that is already publicly available data.

Re: Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

#27

Post by mschuster91 »

javajosh wrote: post #23
haubey wrote: post #7

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm especially not a British lawyer, but I do have an Athletic subscription. The article discusses a lawsuit on behalf of Primer League and mostly lower league soccer players in England around their "personal data." > More than 400 current and former players have signed up to pursue gaming, betting and data-processing companies who utilise their personal statistics without consent or compensatio…

I think another argument is that the game is enjoyed in many forms, over radio, over television, streamed over the internet - and all of those rights must be purchased, etc. If the game statistics are another form of enjoyment, then it is another form, and should be subject to the same ownership issues as the other channels. OTOH, I think the argument is very weak. First, precedent is strongly against the players her…

> Player stats have never been licensed to my knowledge.

Of course they are, that's the entire business model of data analytics companies - the customers are:

- clubs and national teams themselves (e.g. German national team coaches Klinsmann and Löw were famous for early adopting data-driven training)

- sports betting services, casinos and similar enterprises

- TV and radio stations so that the commenters can (at an instant) pull facts like "player xyz has a 80% successful pass rate over the last 30 games"

This stuff is called "soccer analytics", the (German) Wikipedia has a decent article: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer_Analytics

Re: Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

#28

Post by notahacker »

Retric wrote: post #24
notahacker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the challenge will be persuading courts that actions that users are paid to undertake in public and contractually agreed to reassign relevant image rights to are [i] 'personal data' under the intended meaning of GDPR and that [ii] something they didn't have informed consent about the possibility third parties might have access to when signing those contracts. Proving actual instances of harm suffered from the…

I think betting is likely to have an unusually negative economic impact on the players. Loss avoidance means people are more likely to remember players ‘underperforming’ expectations than exceeding them. That’s going to have a negative impact on their marketability as paid sponsors independent of actual performance. It’s questionable if they can win, but demonstrating damages may be the easiest part of this case.

I think proving a specific instance of lost sponsorship income to the satisfaction of a court is going to be extraordinarily difficult, especially if the argument is that consumers draw more adverse inferences from commercial datasets (which they generally don't have access to themselves; betting companies use them to help set the odds) than watching the matches.

Even more so when the context is that virtually any employer of professional footballers derives some of their revenue from betting, and betting companies are the primary sponsors of half the English Premier League teams and the English Football League organization

Re: Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

#29

Post by boomboomsubban »

notahacker wrote: post #19
_jxdz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal argument appears to be: 1. There have been breaches of data protection law (GDPR as implemented in the Data Protection Act 2018), e.g. players did not consent to data transfer, the data isn't accurate, etc. and it's done on a commercial basis. 2. These breaches were injurious to the economic prospects of the affected players and therefore damages should be awarded. I would imagine that the cause of action w…

I think the challenge will be persuading courts that actions that users are paid to undertake in public and contractually agreed to reassign relevant image rights to are [i] 'personal data' under the intended meaning of GDPR and that [ii] something they didn't have informed consent about the possibility third parties might have access to when signing those contracts. Proving actual instances of harm suffered from the…

>Proving actual instances of harm suffered from the dissemination of unfavourable statistics is also going to be tricky (even though there are undoubtedly players that have lost out).

All you would need is one club saying they searched the data for say "any player over six foot" and one player who fit the search term but the data was inaccurate.

Re: Players to sue for hundreds of millions over use of their statistics

#30

Post by 3np »

haubey wrote: post #7

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm especially not a British lawyer, but I do have an Athletic subscription. The article discusses a lawsuit on behalf of Primer League and mostly lower league soccer players in England around their "personal data." > More than 400 current and former players have signed up to pursue gaming, betting and data-processing companies who utilise their personal statistics without consent or compensatio…

As matthewheath pointed out, this is around personal data use as opposed to copyright.

IANAL but I wouldn't be shocked however this falls.

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