On Friday, the 19th, in an Ohio court, a verdict was delivered in the case of tattoo artist Jimmy Hayden against Take-Two. The artist decided to sue the owners of the NBA 2K basketball simulator series because they replicated LeBron James’ image, complete with all his tattoos, including those done by Mr. Hayden, in great detail. Initially, the plaintiff complained about copyright infringement involving six tattoos, but Federal Judge Christopher Boyko only considered two. Attorney Todd Tucker referred to previous experiences in a similar case, where Warner Bros. paid his client $1,500 for filming LeBron in the lead role in “Space Jam: A New Legacy.”
The defense, represented by attorney Dale Cendali of Kirkland & Ellis LLP (presumably representing T2’s interests in courts on an ongoing basis), countered by stating that the tattoos depicted in the game are only a small part of NBA 2K and that the use of basketball player images is governed by licenses provided by the NBA players association.
Take-Two doesn’t need permission because it was already given by Mr. James. This case is about his ability to license his likeness, and thus, it concerns him more than T2.
In the end, the court sided with the company. This was not the tattoo artist’s first attempt to sue over this issue — he first took legal action seven years ago. Overall, such practices in the gaming industry have been encountered since at least 2012. Over time, the owner of GTA, RDR, NBA 2K, and other video games has had mixed successes: sometimes winning similar cases (also related to LeBron), and sometimes losing. In the latter case, a payment of $3,750 was made to Catherine Alexander. The amount is small compared to the defendant’s earnings, but it’s more than the $450 the company offered WWE for using her artwork in their merchandise.
Source: gta.com.ua