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Jim Brown takes on EA and Sony

Former Cleveland Browns player Jim Brown is suing Electronics Arts and Sony for using his image in EA's Madden NFL series without his authorization.

Brown takes the position that video games had not yet been invented when he was playing football in the NFL, and he therefore never had the chance to make the decision to sign away the rights to his image to be used in video games. Also, in his day the NFL prohibited players from using lawyers or agents when negotiating contracts, compensation, etc.

Brown is claiming unspecified damages and an order to cease the use of his image. According to reports, Brown is not actually named in the game but claims that the Browns player wearing the number 32 (his number) must necessarily refer to him.

EA has an exclusive licence with the NFL until the end of the 2012 season that covers all NFL the teams, players and even stadiums.

If this lawsuit is successful, EA will have the difficult task of having to sign contracts with all players. A possible compromise is that Electronics Arts will sign a deal with the unions representing the retired players.

Coverage at Gamasutra and Sports.ign.

Submitted by Amanda Alfieri, Associate

GTA San Andreas Class Action Decertified

Though Take Two had been nearing settlement with the plaintiffs in a class action who claimed to have been offended by hidden, sexual content in Take Two's GTA San Andreas Game - a.k.a. the Hot Coffee modification - those negotiations have now been derailed with the decertification of the plaintiffs' class action.

The decertification comes as a result of the decision of Judge S.W. Kram of the federal court in New York. Her Honour reasoned that, insofar as the class plaintiffs were from a number of different states and the potential class would be subject to the laws of each such state, the matter could not be resolved as a single dispute in New York federal court.

Coverage at: GamePolitics

Scrabulous removed, but returns under a new name

Facebook users in Canada and the US were blocked from using the extremely popular Scrabulous application earlier this week. Facebook blocked the application pursuant to Hasbro’s request, as the company has taken the matter to Court with claims that RJ Softwares and the Agarwalla brothers’ game infringes on their Scrabble intellectual property rights.

Hasbro owns the rights to the Scrabble game in North America and Mattel owns the rights to it in the rest of the world. Mattel has yet to file a formal lawsuit against the Scrabulous creators. Since the application was blocked earlier this week, the two official games offered on Facebook by Hasbro and Mattel have gone from having fewer than 25,000 users between them to having 60,000 users in Canada and the US alone.

According to CBC, the Agarwalla brothers agreed to have the application blocked in response to Hasbro’s lawsuit. They have now come back with a retooled game with a new look and an adjustable board called Wordscraper. The game is available on Facebook and to date, has fewer than 4,000 users.

Coverage here (GameDaily).

Submitted by Tania Da Silva, Articled Student