Who out there can guide me on the general rules for fair use / licensing of Premier League and/or NFL player names, team names and player images in regards to use in fantasy sports based applications and video games?
Brendan Tinnelly
3mo
Rightsholders will tell you that you need to license everything.... Notable examples who didn't always license were the Football Manager and Pro Evolution Soccer series. The former would avoid using the real competition names ("Champions League" was referred to as the generic "European Cup"), any official IP like badges, logos etc, and also avoided certain teams/competitions entirely, but otherwise contained all the regular team and player names, while the latter would create fake team names (such as "Merseyside Red" for Liverpool). They also used to create fake player names, but nabbed the FIFPro license which allowed them to use those. Both games also shipped with in-game editors that allowed users to change team names, player names, badges, jerseys etc and a cottage industry of mods sprung up that basically outsourced the licensing question to the community. (Football Manager have finally licensed the Premier League for this year's title, perhaps a sign of the times...).
CEO of LiveScore Group - converging the global sports media and betting industries | EGR Power 50
3moThe key factor is whether it's for commercial use or news. In your case, I suspect you will have to license through the official rights holders, the various player associations and leagues.