One of the thrills of following baseball in the modern day is the ability to follow your team’s every move, day in and day out, through a variety of media. But for a number of fans, their options have just decreased by one. Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) has requested that iTunes remove a number of baseball-related podcasts from iTunes, a request which was fulfilled with all the speed and vigor of a Yasiel Puig bat flip. MLBAM cited trademark infringement as the reason for the move in the letter it sent to Apple, which has subsequently been published by NBC Sports’ Hardball Talk:
“As we have done in the past, yesterday we notified Apple about certain podcasts on the iTunes Store whose titles and/or thumbnails include infringing uses of trademarks of Major League Baseball and certain Clubs. And, as we have done in the past, we asked Apple to have these trademarks removed from the podcast titles and thumbnails. Although we did not ask for or seek to have any podcast removed from the Store, it has come to our attention that Apple removed them. Given our many years of experience in notifying Apple about trademark issues on the Store, we trust that removing the podcasts was an oversight, and ask that you please look into this matter as soon as possible.
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