The U.S. Supreme Court made a wise decision last week when it declined to hear a case which would have endangered fantasy baseball and by extension probably all other fantasy sports leagues. That decision let stand a lower court ruling which favored CBC Distribution and Marketing, an operator of fantasy baseball leagues, and the decision rejected arguments of Major League Baseball and players who wanted strict control over how players' names and likenesses are used.

For a time, ironically, CBC played by the league's rules and licensed likenesses and names. When the licensing contract expired, however, MLB offered only the option of promoting its own fantasy league on its own Web site. So CBC sued because it felt threatened, and it won in circuit court and in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. The appellate justices said the First Amendment protects the right of CBC to use information which is clearly public and of great public interest. The justices were completely right.

CBC was merely taking readily available information and adding a service to it just as your favorite sports magazine or television show takes basic information and adds opinion and analysis to make the information more interesting and relevant. It is ridiculous for MLB to essentially assert that players have any more right to control public discussion of their actions than presidential candidates, for example, have to control public discussion of theirs.

Unaddressed by the court, because it's not a matter of law, was the broader issue that Major League Baseball is working hard to undercut its own business. Public attention to baseball inspires demand for MLB merchandise, for games, and for other products of the sports entertainment industry, and the ability to interact with and remake things, such as by composing a fantasy team, feeds that demand.

The more choices there are to tinker, the more likely it is that fans will become passionately involved. By limiting fans' ability to do this, by seeking to completely control and profit from every act of every fan, MLB risks alienating the people who make it rich and driving them away from venues like Miller Park. This is the same lesson which the music industry had beaten into it and which the movie industry is still learning.

On the other hand, one could argue that the players and MLB just aren't making enough money. Anyone care to argue that? Anyone?