MLB Owns Baseball Statistics?

A February 21, 2005 article from the National Law Journal is reporting that the sports industry is struggling to keep pace with copyright violations in media that they can't control. "Player statistics are in the public domain. We've never disputed that," reportedly said Jim Gallagher, senior vice president, corporate communications for MLB Advance Media. "But if you're going to use statistics in a game for profit, you need a license from us to do that. We own those statistics when they're used for commercial gain."