Last update: July 8, 2009 - 8:12 PM
JAMES WALSH
Fantasy football fanatics, stay tuned.
A dispute over who owns the statistics of NFL players has been settled -- although no details of the deal were made available.
Yahoo argued that the NFL Players Association has no right to charge for the use of players' names, pictures and on-field statistics, according to a suit filed in federal court in Minneapolis in June.
The Players Association insisted that using those things created by the players without paying for them violates players' rights.
Fantasy sports pull in $1 billion a year and lawsuits over who controls the statistics needed to run the fantasy games also have increased. In 2007, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Major League Baseball players' names and statistics could be used for fantasy baseball without a fee.
Yahoo had made the same argument for fantasy football after the last of its licensing agreements with the NFL players expired March 1.
It also pointed to an April court decision in a similar dispute between NFL players and CBS Interactive Inc.
The players association is appealing the CBS Interactive decision.
Nicol Addison, a spokeswoman for Yahoo, confirmed Wednesday that a settlement was reached but declined to provide specifics.
