Do you think that companies like EA Sports should be allowed to sell video games which use individual players’ likenesses without compensating the athelete for the use of their name, image and biographical data?
I wasn’t aware of this company and looked them up. It appears that the have games where the user can apply a ‘face’ of a famous favorite player on one of the game avatars. One of the games is NCAA football but they have others such as Tiger Woods golf.
This is really sketchy and seems to be stretching the privacy and ‘branding’ laws,but I assume it is legal since it is the player that is applying the face and using it in the game.
It looks like a legal rip off of every sports figure in their games since the loop hole must be that the game player is the one appropriating the image.
If, however, the courts would rule that sports figures whose faces are used in this game should be compensated, then the NCAA should keep its hands off since it is not compensation from the schools involved.