I don't know about you, but when I was a kid it sure was a drag to see cards like this, with any hint of team logos and wordmarks scrubbed clean to avoid copyright violations and threats of legal action by Major League Baseball. While it's plenty reasonable for MLB to protect their intellectual property by stopping any old Tom, Dick, or Harry from making a buck off of likenesses of their teams and players, there are wonderful laws in this country concerning things like "fair use" and "due process". These legal precedents could be thrown right out the window if our beloved United States Senate votes in favor of
SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act). It's not hard to imagine Topps or Upper Deck deciding one day that I'm violating their copyrights by posting scans of their cards. If that happened, this blog would be shut down immediately and I would be considered a felon. This isn't hyperbole: the bill as currently written is so ridiculously broad and undefined that nearly anything is possible. So
contact your senators and make your voice heard. Tomorrow I'll get back to saying silly things about goofy photos and summarizing old box scores.
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