How baseball and you could learn from the Web

Technology companies have long been trend-setters when it comes to business management. The tech sector did more than give other industries the tools to grease supply chains and improve economies of scale. It first deployed those tools itself, eating its own dog food before sharing it with the rest of the world.

So, now that open-source and royalty-free technologies are being adopted by such mainstream tech vendors as Intel, IBM and Sun, the question is: How soon will companies outside the technology sector see that their old intellectual property policies are a hindrance to, rather than a catalyst for, growth.

Believe it or not, I got to thinking about this because of Major League Baseball (MLB). Why? Because MLB recently started cracking down on the unauthorized use of team logos online. In so doing, the powers that run the sport are demonstrating that they have no idea how the viral nature of the Web works. By calling in the lawyers, baseball is not only kicking a gift horse in the mouth, but it's doing so at a time when it needs that horse more than ever. At a time when MLB seems hell-bent on alienating what's left of its already disillusioned following, the Web could be just what the sport needs.

I wonder whether baseball commissioner Bud Selig understands just how alienating it was for fans of the game to watch helplessly as millionaire players squabbled with millionaire owners, a strike looming darkly in the background--especially when so many of the dollars at stake had so recently resided in those fans' pockets. How much more out of touch can these people be?

The way I see it, Mr. Selig could use a visit from Danny Weitzner, intellectual property policy director for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). . Imagine you were a fly on the wall at that meeting. I think you'd hear Weitzner explain to Selig that the Web would never have grown as phenomenally as it has if the underlying technology--the protocols that transfer and format text and images--had been guarded by a legion of lawyers bent on erecting barriers to usage instead of making that technology as freely available as it is today.

MLB may not understand the Web model. But if it wants to recruit new followers (as well as win back those it has already lost), it needs to think of its intellectual property in the same way that the W3C does, especially when it comes to the Web. Unlike Disney, whose visuals are the company's main selling proposition, logos are not MLB's main product. Challenging contests (aka baseball games) between worthy competitors are. So why guard those logos so jealously?

Maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe the whole baseball business is a scam to sell everything but the game. But, giving MLB the benefit of the doubt, compare what happens when logos are encumbered with legal mumbo jumbo to when they're not.

Encumbered, those logos appear in fewer places. Unencumbered, they appear in more (by several orders of magnitude) places. Which of those alternatives is better for an organization whose success is inextricably linked to its following? Sure, that organization may end up sacrificing some short-term revenue. But by placing a tax on the key images that its (potential) following wishes to embrace, the MLB is undermining its own long-term goals.

In the technology business, the Web isn't the only example of an entity that's grown virally on the basis of unencumbered intellectual property. Consider the Linux operating system, the Apache Web Server, and the MySQL database engine, which all follow the open-source model. Each has an unprecedented worldwide following--a following that would disappear if each had not been free. Entire commercial ecosystems have developed around these technologies in a way that has only contributed to and solidified their popularity.

MLB needs just that sort of popularity. Supposed the MLB's logos were unencumbered. Entire cottage industries--producing everything from Web sites to T-shirts--would grow beyond what they are today. That, in turn, could foster unprecedented growth of the MLB ecosystem.

Sure, MLB wouldn't capitalize directly from all of that growth. But it could gain indirectly, both in sales of its own merchandise and in the maintenance of its fan base. If the entire pie gets bigger by being shared among owners and fans, MLB's slice could well be bigger than the current wholly-owned pie is today.

It's also possible that MLB would also gain compared to other spectator sports that still cling to the old encumbered model, allow baseball to command a higher premium from the television moguls. And maybe that extra TV revenue would allow owners to reduce the cost of attending a game. And maybe that would fill the stadiums more frequently, leading to fewer blackouts and, thus, to higher television revenues. It's what high-tech business gurus once dubbed a virtuous circle.

MLB isn't the only entity where popularity plays a major role in establishing the long-term traction that most businesses need. Back in high school, a friend taught me how to draw the curvaceous logo for the rock band Yes. After I perfected it, my print shop teacher showed me how to put the logo on a t-shirt. I made a few for friends, and it wasn't long before people I didn't even know were handing me blank t-shirts and asking me to make one for them. Soon, Yes  was getting more airplay on the school jukebox. Coincidence? Maybe not. And maybe jukebox airplay wasn't the only thing Yes  got. Maybe a few more records were sold. Now, imagine if that happened in every high school.

Yes, this is an oversimplified view of something that is terribly complex. If anyone at MLB is reading this column, they're no doubt scoffing at my naiveté. But given the ecosystems in the technology business that are thriving on this principle, it seems highly implausible that it wouldn't work in other places. Microsoft and Sun once scoffed at Linux. Now both companies are contending with that erstwhile dark-horse threat. Ahem.

So, what's the Linux in your business? Maybe today's businesses--the MLB included--could use some fresh, out-of-the box thinking. Maybe it's time for a change.

What do you think? Should businesses adopt more of an Internet-like approach to intellectual property? TalkBack below or e-mail me at david.berlind@cnet.com.