Baseball history?

I saw an interesting article recently on cnn.com. Apparently some company is suing Major League Baseball for charging licensing fees for MLB baseball stats.

It raises an interesting issue. The statistics are actually just historical facts, claim the plaintiffs, how can you charge fees? As usual, it's big money driving this question. The plaintiffs are a company that operates large online fantasy football leagues. The stats are the lifeblood of the product.

MLB is investing a lot of money and resources into keeping and providing these stats. It's probably a decent source of revenue, also, when you consider that larger outfits such as Elias Sports Bureau, Stats Inc., et. al. are probably paying good sized fees too.
The players' union is in on the deal and would side with MLB on this.

It's always interesting when these issues arise around Baseball because of it's protected status. In this day and age, it's time to consider whether competitive baseball leagues should be allowed to begin playing. I really think that they should consider ways to modernize the leagues with out having to fiddle with the game itself. Like the way European soccer teams can have league mobility. You don't have to tinker with the on-field product to try that.

That'll never happen. Baseball thrives too much on sentimental traditionalism. It's much more within traditional thinking to find new ways to leverage that well-worn baseball branding (like stats licensing fees, or say, Jonny Damon Yankees jerseys) than to think forward and try something outside the box.