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# Friday, January 29, 2010
Upper Deck vs. Topps yet again: GAME ON
Posted by Tuff Stuff

While it came as a shock to nobody who pays attention to the sports card business, Upper Deck released its 2009 Signature Stars Baseball and Ultimate Collection Baseball products this week and the questions concerning the sets are only outnumbered by the carefully selected images used within them.

One of the first questions I had after taking a look at the unauthorized product was why is the set designated 2009 when it's released in 2010? My next question is why did Upper Deck go to the pain-staking lengths of signaturestarscard.jpgpicking player photos where the team name is covered and didn't bother to take the next step and blur or air-brush out the logos on the helmets and jerseys?

The five-card packs (Stars and Signatures) come with a disclaimer of "NOT authorized by Major League Baseball or its Member Teams" peppered throughout the cards, packs and boxes. I guess that's UD's way of letting us know they don't have an exclusive license because a quick look at the cards would have many begging to differ. In the past when licensing issues permitted manufacturers from using MLB logos, the common practice was to blur the logos to make them indistinguisable or air-brush them out altogether. Signature Stars went as far as to make sure each player pose used has the team name or nickname covered on the front of the player's jerseys, but as you can see in the image displayed, they didn't use the available technology to hide the team logos featured on helmets of jerseys. The cards also only display the team name (eg. Atlanta/Pitcher on card displayed at right) with no mention of the team nicknames displayed anywhere on any of the cards.

Why would UD only go halfway to ensure they stayed within the limitations you ask? Won't that force Topps, MLB or both to seek legal action against them? Well, if the MLB's statement regarding UD's Signature Stars and Ultimate Collection products is any indication, the litigation wheels are already in motion.

“We are surprised and disappointed that Upper Deck, a former partner of ours, would violate our contract by clearly using our intellectual property without our permission. “We will vigorously use all legal means to protect the intellectual property of Major League Baseball and its member Clubs,” said the statement issued by Matt Bourne MLB’s Vice President of Business Public Relations.

Another curious choice made by Upper Deck was why not do the typical promotional effort in leading up to the release date? In fact, if you go to the UD website today, other than a brief listing with the release date for Ultimate Collection being Jan. 26, there is no mention of its new Signature Stars set at all and images from neither product are displayed. Coincidence, not bloody likely.

Obviously the folks at Upper Deck were well aware that the two sets would be highly scrutinized and likely challenged in the courtroom somewhere down the road. But by designing the cards in the way they did, could UD have perhaps found a legal loophole that would challenge the exclusive agreement and somehow render Topps' exclusive with MLB null and void and ultimately continue to produce baseball cards without ponying up the huge dollars it takes to land an exclusive?

Got a "no comment" from the folks at Topps regarding the issue and UD  said the same. My guess is that the latest firestorm between the two card companies will likely continue to build momentum and will not be extinguished until millions dollars have been burned up in the courtroom. I'm also guessing that the millions of dollars it will take to try and get the exclusive contract voided and the likely subsequent backlash from the collecting public is viewed by the UD folks as a worthwhile battle. And let's not forget the old theory that any publicity is good publicity and the chance of these products eventually being ordered fro the store shelves could lead to a collecting frenzy and suddenly UD's rule violation suddenly looks like a small piece of a well-crafted plan. Because if that's not the case and UD doesn't have a legal loophole up it's sleeve, it appears they're setting themselves for a huge, costly battle they have very little chance of winning.

Not sure how this will all play out but one thing is for certain: it's deja vu all over again in the card-making business. Game on.
  


Friday, January 29, 2010 6:53:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [1]
Friday, January 29, 2010 9:35:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Scott Hows about a blog on the devious deception Topps attempted to pull on us hobbyists with the relics?
steve emerick
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