NCAA Sam Keller vs. EA Update (Patent Arcade)

[gator3guy]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

Yeah the NCAA is so awful, making money while giving out free housing and education to students who in many cases otherwise wouldn't be able to even sniff a college education. They're just monsters.

you didn't even bother to read my post i see

[huskerwr38]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

Yeah the NCAA is so awful, making money while giving out free housing and education to students who in many cases otherwise wouldn't be able to even sniff a college education. They're just monsters.

NCAA doesn't give out scholarships, the schools do. It doesn't come out of their pockets, it comes out of the school's pocket. NCAA is the biggest hypocrites of them all, they say "nobody else can make money off of these players except us!" Everyone knows that they make millions upon millions off of collegiate athletes.

Not to mention, most players have to pay their way through college. Also, most Division III schools don't allow full scholarships to be given, and who knows why. They have rules that make absolutely no sense.

[gator3guy]

Quote: Originally Posted by huskerwr38

NCAA doesn't give out scholarships, the schools do. It doesn't come out of their pockets, it comes out of the school's pocket. NCAA is the biggest hypocrites of them all, they say "nobody else can make money off of these players except us!" Everyone knows that they make millions upon millions off of collegiate athletes. Not to mention, most players have to pay their way through college. Also, most Division III schools don't allow full scholarships to be given, and who knows why. They have rules that make absolutely no sense.

Thank you and as far as i know, DIII doesn't give out scholarships at all.

[ODogg]

gator3guy - i read your post completely.

[gator3guy]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

gator3guy - i read your post completely.

Not every student athlete gets a free education. In fact most have to pay out of pocket of some sort. And those scholarships are earned not given.

[MaizeHaze]

How much $$$ is he hoping to get out of this?

[ODogg]

I realize not every student athlete gets a free education and not even all of them get a full scholarship. I also never said they were given anything. If I did then I apologize as I didn't mean it that way. Of course I realize there is a great amount of work involved in the athletes getting them as well. All I'm saying is that I don't believe student athletes should be paid like they are professional athletes.

[rbertels]

Sorry, but some of you completely miss the point. This case has nothing to do with whatever benefits the NCAA provides to student athletes - directly or indirectly. You can bad mouth Keller all you want, but what's driving this is a group of attorneys who realized a real legal problem, and use Keller because you would have to be directly affected by it to bring the lawsuit. I guarentee EA's in house legal staff are very, very nervous about this case, as it affects more than just the NCAA Football game. While an athlete who enrolls in a university allows the NCAA to use his likeness in promotional matters, there is nothing allowing the NCAA to then sell that likeness to a 3rd party, and allowing that 3rd party to then use the likeness for profit. This is essentially what the NCAA is doing in knowingly allowing EA to use rosters that are substantially similar to the actual teams. I don't think anyone can seriously argue that 90% of the players in the NCAA series are not strikingly similar to their real life counterpart. The only thing missing is the name. Using anyone's likeness for profit, without permission, regardless of what that person does, incurrs severe civil liability. This is true whether you are a professional athlete, an amateur athlete, or a factor worker in Ohio. Obviously, it's only worth an attorney going after it though if there are damages, or in other words, a lot of $$ involved, like in the EA Sports games which sells millions each year.

Think about it this way, When an someone joins the NFLPA or the MLBPA, they give that union the right to collectively engage in negotiations for any product using the likenesses of all players in the union. This is how the NFLPA is licensed to Madden. If there were no such union though, each player would still have an individual right to not have his likeness used for profit. You couldnt make a football game featuring a team in Indy that had its 1 best player as QB #16 from Tenn. with the same height, age, weight, skin color, as Manning without risking being sued, regardless if there is a union or not. This same right exists for all NCAA players, and doesn't cease to exist just because they got a scholarship. That's a red herring argument at best.

The same problem exists with any "classic rosters" in any sporting game. It is pretty easy to determine who these players are, and if they are not in the players union anymore, they don't get a dime, unless the players association works out a seperate deal to avoid a lawsuit like the NFLPA did last year. I enjoy playing these games as much as anyone, but that doesn't change the fact that these players' likenesses are being used without their consent, for profit, by a 3rd party. I bet the U.S. Supreme Court ends up deciding it.