02:47 PM - November 19, 2010 by RaychelSnr
The New York times reported earlier this week on the
Sam Keller/EA Sports lawsuit:
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"When Sam Keller, a former quarterback at Arizona State, sued the video game publisher Electronic Arts last year, he was seeking compensation for himself and other college athletes whose names were not used but whose images he contended were being illegally used by the company.
But to the media conglomerates, athletes, actors, First Amendment advocates and others who have recently weighed in on the case, Keller’s lawsuit is about much more than video games. The outcome of a recent appeal filed by Electronic Arts, their lawyers say, could rewrite the rules that dictate how much ownership public figures have over their images — and the extent to which outside parties, including media and entertainment companies — can profit from them." |
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Basically, this is becoming a big lawsuit and it's not really about video games anymore -- at least to these additional parties with interests in the suit.
We haven't even seen the case move forward too far and people are already talking Supreme Court? Well this would mean we won't see a resolution for quite some time, which is either good or bad news, depending on how you look at it.
Basically for those who don't quite understand yet -- there are a lot of people very interested in the outcome of this lawsuit. It's becoming quite a big deal.
The case hasn't progressed too far yet, but with everyone lining up on each side of the case -- we are going to see a very interesting set of arguments from both sides of the fence. I know gamers are interested in Electronic Arts winning this case, but there is indeed a much bigger picture at work here.
The argument from the Keller Camp that sports video games aren't the same as other games, and that prior court rulings that video games are protected speech, is an interesting one. If Keller wins, the NCAA and EA will have to fork over some major money and then EA will have to either start licensing real players for NCAA or EA will have to create completely generic rosters in every sense of the word.
However, should EA win, from what Crabtree-Ireland said above -- you would no longer have to license likenesses in sports games. So while you would still have to license teams, players would be fair game to be used without a license fee of any kind.
It would be good for sports gamers if EA won in that sense, but it would also be exceptionally bad if you are someone who might be used in a creative production of any kind. This is indeed a huge case and it should be the most interesting and groundreaking case for video games perhaps ever.
As always, we'll be on top of it!
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