Madden in Court for the same issue as NCAA football

[kjcheezhead]

Quote: Originally Posted by ggsimmonds

His ratings are certainly not most important. What is most important is his physical likeness and EA's made up ratings are not part of that. However, as there is no precedent for this *as far as I know), maybe it could go either way. My thinking is that if the court rules against EA it will be due to the biological attributes instead of ratings.

There is precedence. The NCAA case. Basically, if you make a character meant to imitate a real player in a realistic way by physical attributes, stats, team and Jersey number, or skill sets you've created a likeness that will get you sued for using their property.

If you make a caricature of them like a mutant league alien or have them doing something other than playing football, you're probably safe under the first amendment.

[ggsimmonds]

Quote: Originally Posted by kjcheezhead

There is precedence. The NCAA case. Basically, if you make a character meant to imitate a real player in a realistic way by physical attributes, stats, team and Jersey number, or skill sets you've created a likeness that will get you sued for using their property. If you make a caricature of them like a mutant league alien or have them doing something other than playing football, you're probably safe under the first amendment.

The NCAA case is not the precedent for this. These are/were professional athletes. They typically fall under the category of celebrity/public figure. Amateur student athletes do not.

When it comes to public figures, you are allowed limited use of their likeness, this is where your caricature comes into play.

The courts may indeed rule against EA, but it will primarily be due to biographical info such as height, skin color, college, etc.
A player's attorney would not be smart to base their argument around "well this player in a video game has a throwing power of 96, we believe that 96 represents my client's arm strength. That is not likeness.

I would think that the NFLPA has some kind of language in contracts that allow limited use of former players, but I don't know the extent or the exact language.

LEts clarify something, if these legends in the game have only their name changed with everything else being true to life, then yeah, EA has a problem.
But ratings themselves are not enough for likeness.

[cable guy]

I see the point about Aaron Rodgers, but that's the whole problem. It's the way society is now. And I think it's terrible.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[IlluminatusUIUC]

Quote: Originally Posted by NateDogPack12

This is kind of baffling to me. I have Madden 08 for the PC, and a great number, if not all, of the historical players are not named at all and misnumbered. It's been awhile since I've used a historical team, but I think Brett Favre is #5 for example. I thought EA purposely avoided exact likenesses to avoid something such as this.

I'm not sure why they would need to use a fake likeness of Favre in Madden 08, he was already a licensed player as part of the NFLPA that year.

[cusefan74]

Quote: Originally Posted by tarheelguy4736

I think most of us are growing tiresome of these cases and how it's affecting the landscape of video games. There is going to come a point where companies will not want to produce a video game in fear of litigation. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and if they feel like they want a bigger piece then they will just sue. That's the mindset now a days. Hopefully this has minimal impact to the franchise and video games in general. Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

This exactly!

That's why I think they are scared to have editable draft classes at this point. I know 2k does it, but they haven't had law suits against them yet.

[cch99]

My opinion on this is simple. You can pretend that it's not meant to represent a certain player but if you are being honest with yourself it's obvious what EA is/was trying to do.

If you have the all-time Steelers before Roethlisberger played who else would it be but Bradshaw. If you have say 1978 Steelers obviously the ratings are meant to be Bradshaw even if nothing else says it's him.

The only way around this is to basically make all the ratings random every time you go into that mode or play that team so they change evey time. Or in NCAA if you start a new season all the ratings are random and change every time you start a new dynasty.

If they did that that's where I don't get how even if you make the ratings editable and and tradeable how that would be somethign you could sue for as long as people weren't making money off those rosters. Though you could argue it's the same concept that they are doing it knowing what people will do.

The whole thing about society being too litigious is all fine and good until you are the person being exploited or taken advantage of by some giant corporation or entity. I can see arguing that Lawyers are using the system to get rich but that is a totally different issue.

My 2 cents

[ggsimmonds]

Quote: Originally Posted by cch99

My opinion on this is simple. You can pretend that it's not meant to represent a certain player but if you are being honest with yourself it's obvious what EA is/was trying to do. If you have the all-time Steelers before Roethlisberger played who else would it be but Bradshaw. If you have say 1978 Steelers obviously the ratings are meant to be Bradshaw even if nothing else says it's him. The only way around this is to basically make all the ratings random every time you go into that mode or play that team so they change evey time. Or in NCAA if you start a new season all the ratings are random and change every time you start a new dynasty. If they did that that's where I don't get how even if you make the ratings editable and and tradeable how that would be somethign you could sue for as long as people weren't making money off those rosters. Though you could argue it's the same concept that they are doing it knowing what people will do. The whole thing about society being too litigious is all fine and good until you are the person being exploited or taken advantage of by some giant corporation or entity. I can see arguing that Lawyers are using the system to get rich but that is a totally different issue. My 2 cents

EA using fake players to represent real players is not a problem. That does not fall under the legal umbrella of likeness. Ea gets into trouble when they try to recreate real players.

Player ratings would not get EA into trouble. Those could be built off of stats. NFL players do not own their stats.

I don't buy the NFL players being exploited in this scenario. I cannot take that claim seriously. If the game was different, say you created a rookie QB and you were mentored by a blond haired HOF QB named Todd Brickshaw who had the mannerisms of a certain Qb then yeah, that would be different.

[cch99]

"Player ratings would not get EA into trouble. Those could be built off of stats. NFL players do not own their stats.

I don't buy the NFL players being exploited in this scenario."

I am not a lawyer but I would think while they don't own the stats when you put it into the context of the game and call a team '78 Steelers or whatever it's obvious who that is meant to be. Especially if the QB is similar to the real player skills wise. The argument would be that EA knowingly tried to represent that "sprite" as Terry Bradshaw. There are also people that agree with that notion or they wouldn't be suing them for illegally using the likeness. In this case regardless it wasn't just ratings it was a number of things others had mentioned, number, throwing arm, skin color, etc.

While I kind of agree with you that they aren't being exploited my other comment was on litigation in general.

But the players argument is also likely that using their likeness helped make the game sell more copies, hence making more money for EA and they didn't see a cut of it. And EA did it knowing what they were doing and not bothering getting ok's at the time for whatever there reason was.