Six-thousand players are suing Electronic Arts for using their unauthorized likenesses in Madden NFL 09. The game featured over 140 historic teams and thousands of players for the franchise's 20-year anniversary edition.
"EA was fully aware that its use of the retired players' likenesses was without authorization and that a license was needed," reads the lawsuit filed in a Californian court by the law firm Thomas Whitelaw & Tyler, a firm that specializes in "high stakes intellectual property" according to its website. Although player names weren't used, users could input the names themselves and the lawsuit contends that the players' general characteristics were a misuse of the likenesses of the non-licensed retired players.
The lawsuit also argues that EA tried to knowingly circumvent paying these players for their likenesses in some cases by using different uniform numbers or making "certain trivial changes in a player's characteristics, such as changing a player's weight by a few pounds."
Earlier, NFL legend Jim Brown sued EA over the company's alleged illegal use of his likeness and lost, although he is appealing the court's decision.