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Are gaming companies taking liberties with celebrities’ profiles?
An interesting story out of America where suing people is almost as big a national past time as baseball.
It seems former Arizona State and Nebraska quarterback, Sam Keller, has filed a suit against EA sports and the university football association the NCAA, for using his likeness in one of their games. As he belonged to the amateur arm of the game, they are not allowed to make money from commercial enterprises.
It’s not surprising that this has started to happen, as more and more sites start taking liberties with peoples’ likenesses and trying to make a dollar of these stars’ fame.
Defenders of EA Sports say that it is hard to prove they are using the players because no facial features or names are given. However, lawyers for Keller say that stats such as height, weight, position and number – and in some cases even the name of the ‘character’s’ hometown, all tally with the real-life player.
It’s not the first time gaming companies have trodden a fine line. There is a free game website called Miniclip that has a soccer game whereby different countries play each other. To add more interest players were given names on their shirts like Buckem, Kiki and Hanry – no resemblance there to famous footballers.
