Athlete’s Right of Publicity Outweighs First Amendment Protections for EA Video Game, Court Holds

Hart v. Electronic Arts, Inc.
By Samantha Rothberg – Edited by Alex Shank

The Third Circuit reversed the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey’s grant of summary judgment to Electronic Arts (“EA”) in a right of publicity action, on the grounds that EA’s appropriation of Ryan Hart’s likeness in a video game was protected by the First Amendment. The case was remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with the Third Circuit’s adoption of the “transformative use” test.

Read More...

Written By: Jacob Rogers Edited By: Jeffery Habenicht Editorial Policy Introduction On November 18th-20th, 2011, Major League Gaming hosted a Starcraft II tournament in Providence, Rhode Island, where over 250 professional players competed for a $100,000 prize. Starcraft and Starcraft II (collectively “Starcraft”) are a pair of video games set in a futuristic universe in which players compete against each other by controlling armies of humans with advanced technology or one of two alien races, the enigmatic Protoss, or the ... Read More...

Canadian Supreme Court Ends Royalties for Online Music Downloads By Andrew Crocker — Edited by Michael Hoven Entertainment Software Association (ESA) v. Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), 2012 SCC 34; Rogers Communications Inc. v. SOCAN, 2012 SCC 35, SOCAN v. Bell Canada, 2012 SCC 36. Opinions available at the Supreme Court of Canada. In three copyright decisions on July 12, the Canadian Supreme Court interpreted the scope of rights in musical works under Canada’s Copyright ... Read More...

By Geng Chen Violent Video Game Fight Ends Not With a Bang, But With an Invoice The Sacramento Bee had the last word in the California violent video games saga. California taxpayers will end up bearing the $1.8 million bill for legal services related to defending the controversial state statute, struck down by a 7-2 vote in the Supreme Court last year in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass’n. It would have prevented retailers from selling video games depicting killing, maiming, ... Read More...

By Andrew Segna Google Acquires Motorola Mobility for $12.5 Billion Google announced on August 15, 2011 that it will acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in cash. Ars Technica reports that this purchase was motivated in part by Google’s desire to acquire Motorola’s patents and to protect its Android mobile platform, as this deal will give Google control of more than 17,000 patents in the mobile arena and 7,000 patent applications. This acquisition comes in light of Google accusing Microsoft, ... Read More...