Post: EA Sports Sued By 6,000 Retired NFL Players
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08-03-2010, 05:07 PM
#1
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America loves two things: NFL and lawsuits. So, when these two meet, you have the ultimate American Dream. The likenesses of the historic teams in Madden 09 were apparently a little too lifelike, as roughly 6,000 former NFL players are taking EA Sports to court over what they allege is the unlawful use of their likenesses in Madden NFL 09.
According to IGN, the lawsuit claims that EA used the stats and positions of past players, but changed their uniform numbers and removed their names in order to get around having to pay licensing fees. One retired footballer, Tony Davis, claims that the publisher used the exact stats of players, including height and weight, but changed the names and jersey numbers to get out of stumping up the cash.
The lawsuit also takes aim at the customization options available, which let players freely edit in the real names and uniform numbers of these classic athletes. "The only significant detail that EA changes from the real-life retired NFL players is their jersey number," the suit claims. "Despite EA's 'scrambling' of the retired NFL players' numbers, the games are designed so that consumers of the Madden NFL video game franchise will have no difficulty identifying who the 'historic' players are."
The lawsuit seeks damages associated with the "deprivation and violation of publicity rights." Lawsuits are THE SHIT, right?
[/B][/COLOR]America loves two things: NFL and lawsuits. So, when these two meet, you have the ultimate American Dream. The likenesses of the historic teams in Madden 09 were apparently a little too lifelike, as roughly 6,000 former NFL players are taking EA Sports to court over what they allege is the unlawful use of their likenesses in Madden NFL 09.
According to IGN, the lawsuit claims that EA used the stats and positions of past players, but changed their uniform numbers and removed their names in order to get around having to pay licensing fees. One retired footballer, Tony Davis, claims that the publisher used the exact stats of players, including height and weight, but changed the names and jersey numbers to get out of stumping up the cash.
The lawsuit also takes aim at the customization options available, which let players freely edit in the real names and uniform numbers of these classic athletes. "The only significant detail that EA changes from the real-life retired NFL players is their jersey number," the suit claims. "Despite EA's 'scrambling' of the retired NFL players' numbers, the games are designed so that consumers of the Madden NFL video game franchise will have no difficulty identifying who the 'historic' players are."
The lawsuit seeks damages associated with the "deprivation and violation of publicity rights." Lawsuits are THE SHIT, right?
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The following 9 users say thank you to MBO for this useful post:
08-03-2010, 09:52 PM
#21
glitchplz
Samurai Poster
The game doesn't not make the players look bad or degrade them in any way. It is ridiculous the way professional athletes act like huge money whores. I say EA will win this in court, after all look at south park they make fun of anyone and everyone by slightly changing their name or some other alteration and they are fine
08-04-2010, 12:17 AM
#23
KrAzY_PwNaGe
Bounty hunter
Originally posted by glitchplz
The game doesn't not make the players look bad or degrade them in any way. It is ridiculous the way professional athletes act like huge money whores. I say EA will win this in court, after all look at south park they make fun of anyone and everyone by slightly changing their name or some other alteration and they are fine
Agreed! i like EA alot for Battlefield games however they dont provide enough content thats all i have against them. But i want EA to win this as other people have said GTA copy cars and change their names which could be taken up by companys like Lamborghini, rolesroyce and other companies cars that are involved in GTA. Also like i quoted South park they make fun of people and change names so why just suddenly point a finger at EA and blame them for shit like this!??
08-04-2010, 07:21 AM
#27
Gaia
Former Staff
Wow, that just completely sucks, like seriously, your famous, retired, and EA just publishes you in a game, but they don't want to give you credit, so instead, they just edit the name and number, why couldn't they just make up the stats? I'm on the retired NFL player side
08-04-2010, 09:35 AM
#28
Cyber Altair
League Champion
Originally posted by glitchplz
The game doesn't not make the players look bad or degrade them in any way. It is ridiculous the way professional athletes act like huge money whores. I say EA will win this in court, after all look at south park they make fun of anyone and everyone by slightly changing their name or some other alteration and they are fine
Those two things are different you know.
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