[IlluminatusUIUC]

Quote: Originally Posted by TimLawNYC

Don't take this as any sort of legal advice, but I think the argument would be that by allowing roster editing/sharing, EA is still profiting from player likenesses by helping to "include" them in the game but just using a backdoor to do it. If they market the game with fictional players but allow full roster editing and sharing while knowing with certainty that real players and rosters will be available to the community through that feature, EA is still reaping the sales and benefits from the fact that the likenesses of real players are easily added in to the game, whether EA officially put them there or not. It's not a slam dunk argument but EA, NCAA and all the other players here have been very careful to avoid even the prospect of getting involved in litigation about this issue, so I'd expect that they will continue to take a conservative stance and try to avoid anything that could be expected to bring them into court.

They allow roster sharing in the Madden franchise which often involves gamers replicating those exact same players. Like you said in your second paragraph, they are just being overly cautious to avoid being hauled into court in the first place. There's already some bad precedent against them regarding likeness rights in the 3rd Circuit, so they don't want to test it.