Why different rulesets?

[chapmaja]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

No, that's ridiculous, because to the beneficiaries of a sport itself, that's a cost, not a benefit. Softball is not a proprietary game like Monopoly. At best a body can make money off a participant sport by selling or renting equipment or facilities, like their gym, the way Ping Pong is a proprietary set of equipment for playing table tennis, or sell club membership.

The amount of copyrightable material in a rule book for something like softball is negligible as concerns the rules content itself (i.e. not yearbook details). Copyright protects only literary expression, not ideas. I suppose the amendments to a year's softball rules could be treated as a trade secret, but that's laughable.

Which is why today we're all using Apple microcomputers, right?

Beleive what you want.

If it were really a cost, why would the NFHS not use ASA rules for softball, MLB or NCAA rules for baseball, NCAA rules for basketball, ect. The rules of the game really are not that different.