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Licensing Likenesses For Sports Games
mojotooth writes "According to an article on The Register (via Gamesindustry.biz), German courts have handed down a ruling that the EA Sports game FIFA World Cup 2002 cannot be sold in Germany, because it features the name and likeness of Bundesleague goalkeeper Oliver Kahn without his express permission. The court has not yet handed down damages. This could be troubling to the sports gaming industry - we might be forced back into the dark ages of sports gaming, where team names and jersey numbers could be used, but not the names or likenesses of the players."
If anyone played this NES game (I'm pretty sure it was endorsed by clemens, or some other good pitcher') It only had his permission, so they changed all the names of every single major league player slightly, which made it quite hilarious to figure out who was who.
(Now pitching, Tim Glavoon).
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Appropriation applies to any form of media, where someone can be identified. [on a side note, identificaiton means that they could be one of 15-20 people] In the news, we always have to be quite careful when releasing names and not photographs of people [confusion of a rapist is probably not a good thing].
I cant imagine fifa not having some sort of players association that they could liscence through. If they dont, they need to get their head in the game. Look at the NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS, NHL, even nascar. They all have players associations that handle likeness issues.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
I never minded naming my player in the "good old days" (Baseball Stars). You can either name them after the real team yourself or whatever group you like. Star Trek, Star Wars, any other geeky obsession.
Its Oliver Kahn
Here is the screenshot of Oliver in the game.
Forget the dark ages of gaming. Hello dark ages of BBSing.
If you disagree then it must be overrated, redundant or trolling.
Suck it up.
The "dark age" game the link in the post refers to is NHLPA 93, which has (had?) real player names and numbers but not the actual team names, just the city. Hence the name "NHLPA", as in the NHL Players Association. How ironic.
meh. i just found my old slashdot account. had to post to something.
Dang, now games may have to be sold based on their gameplay mechanics and merits instead of relying on borrowing famous names.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Instead of the real sports people, just use open source "movers and shakers" (they shake when they move!).
But seriously, do you really have to have the likeness of NBA players to enjoy a basketball arcade game? It just increases the barrier of entry for the little guy. The back yard (or whatever it's called) sports series became successful without any licensed playas, didn't it?
Tony Hawk may actually care about the games and spend ages with the developers explaining stuff but most sportonalities don't. Did Jeremy McGrath even played that horrible Dreamcast game after putting his name on it? No, or he would never have agreed to peddle a game where the motorcycles controlled - and sounded - like bees.
Hey, raffle off a chance to get your likeness in the game. Put yourselves and your girlfriends in the game. Work out a deal with a toy company that needs brand recognition in time for the xmas rush. Just stop this 'you must be at least this $$$ rich to create even the suckiest sports game' madness.
Come on, didn't you have fun playing that hockey game on the NES? Did Activision's Atari 2600 Tennis game suck because you were 'black guy' or 'white guy' instead of 16 professionals? Was Atari's Pele's soccer better because of the name? All the soccer players in that title were three rectangles, so I don't think any of them was any more or less Pele than the others.
OK, I'm all rambled out now.
I realize this article is about physical likenesses but what about using someone's voice? Can Stephen Hawking sue all those cheezy voice-synthesizer games in the 80s for using his voice without his express written permission?
GMD
watch this
Not sure what other people do, but under http://games.slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome
I turned on the "Collapse Sections (show stories from all sections, unless specifically excluded)" section, and then specifically exclude certain sections.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I think typically what is done is that licenses are obtained from the major sports organizations, like the NBA, NFL, and so on. These licenses allow them to use the names and likenesses of any players that are officially in the league that organization owns. I suspect that when players sign up for a league that they sign some manner of contract that allows the leagues to do this. I'm not sure how it works for free agents, but one could assume something similar might be done. Assuming FIFA has something like this, then EA would have already gone through this process.
Regardless, I don't see this as being a major issue. Even in the old days you could tell who was who. You can even tell who is who with the College sports games as well where they aren't allowed to use players names or likenesses.
we might be forced back into the dark ages of sports gaming, where team names and jersey numbers could be used, but not the names or likenesses of the players
Or push us forward to an enlightened age where you actually ask permission before getting rich off somebody else's reputation.
Sheesh.
There has to be some kid somewhere named "Micheal Jordan" who is a fairly good basket ball player... Why not pay that kid for his likeness and name? I'm sure it would be alot cheaper then the real guy.
Dark Ages? Instead, this is a good thing. No one will mind much playing a game featuring the Dolphins or the Raiders in another ten years, but imagine playing a game fraturing the likes (pardon the pun) of Fran Tarkenton, Joe Namath, or O.J. Simpson?
We are human. Our culture evolves. Computers don't understand that; software doesn't age. Etching the face of a present day star into software stone makes about as much sense as locking our copyright works away forever behind some CSS encryption just because infinite-minus-a-day copyrights happen to be in vogue today.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
Furthermore, although Germany has only a limited statutory right of publicity insofar as photographs are concerned, it has at times based a tentative right to publicity on Constitutional grounds, and is known for a more expansive definition of "commercial activity" than U.S. courts (for example, where news reportage would be prima facie protected in the States, it is treated as a commercial activity in Germany).
I find it surprising and unlikely that EA would attempt to sell a video game using the likeness of a sports star without some kind of licensing deal, since otherwise they could be found liable in a wide range of venues. Either somebody really screwed up (and, hey, it could have been in-house counsel!), or else there's something more to this dispute.
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
Just make the names up.
I'm sure Micheal Jordan is in there somewhere.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
That works, but it gives too much content. I want stories that were promoted to the home page, and all the games stories.... How do I get that?
For a while, the EA NBA games had the permission of the NBA Players Association, but not of Michael Jordan (not sure why he had separate permission). All of the players in the NBA were there. Except the starting shooting guard of the Chicago Bulls was an unnamed player wearing jersey #99.
You mean we'll go back to the golden age. Where in Bases Loaded the best batters were Paste and Warner. And team names were single letters like P, B and M. The only sports games that are good anymore are NHL 200*. Other than that the best are NBA Jam, Bases Loaded, Baseball, Baseball Simulator, 10 Yard Fight, Tecmo Super Bowl, Blades of Steel, and the best ever Ice Hockey. I'd rather have generic color teams with no branding. Then the companies will concentrate on making the game better and not on getting the better license.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
in soviet russia, players use the games, without jersy numbers, or team names!
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
had fun back in those NES days with the no-name teams and no-name players, but it's alot more fun to be playing as *favorite real life team* than *no name player x*
OK, how about this: no pre-made professionals, but you can customize characters' appearance in many many ways (think recent Tony Hawks - my nieces had so much fun playing dress-up they wouldn't let me play the actual game). Let players upload and download and you're all done - somebody will create every major team / player, and it would be done by actual users rather than developers. Nobody to sue, everybody's happy.
I remember taking PHI and HOU to the championship in every football game, well, every game that had them. Remember, some games didnt even have all the teams!! Still, HOU QB#1 and PHI QB#12 were the best in whatever game I played.
What, me Tweet?
He's just upset because EA didn't make him a god in the game. They show him for what he is, an above average keeper. If he had the skills in real life he would have had them in the game. Kahn's always been a dick anyway and he's still bitter about getting his ass beat in the last world cup.
It won't be a problem because most major sports games license all of the members of a particular leagues players association. The only time they run into trouble is when a player isn't actually a member and they get used anyways (some sports card makers have run into this and have gotten sued). This is why in madden 2003 the best linebacker on the Washington redskins is only known as Linebacker 56, good ole LaVar Arrington isn't a member of the players association.
Licensing would never become a serious concern for sports gamers. North American Sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, etc) all have some sort of players union (NFLPA, for instance). The Unions are the ones who sign away the likenesses of the players, not the leagues themselves, and any serious sports game developer would realize how crucial it is to have the likenesses of the athletes that they feature, and pay any amount of money to the Players Associations/Unions in order to use their actual names. If anybody remembers the original John Madden Football game for the Nintendo 64, the game featured the likenesses of the players (complete with names), but lacked the names, logos, and most things associated with the teams. They signed on with the NFLPA but not with the NFL Owners Club, or whatever it is... Teams were given generic, but hinted names (I think the N.E. Patriots were something like the "Boston Revolutionaries" or something similar) But, anyway, it's not a serious concern that any big name company will release a game where they do not have the names of the players, assuming that the sport featured in the game is one that features a players' union. Mike
I've spent too much time chasing windmills.
Another example of this can be found with Konami's brilliant Winning Eleven soccer games. They have a FIFAPro licensce (as EA has exclusive full FIFA licensce) and as such change around the names of many players (Rodalno instead of Ronaldo, etc..). However, a certain dutch league has threatened to sue Konami even with the mixed up names, thus many dutch players have the name Oranges002, Oranges003, etc... But its all good because Konami gives you the option of changing team names, player names, etc... Winning Eleven is far superior to EA's FIFA in everything but graphics.
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So what's the big deal, get the players permission. If they don't get it their picture shouldn't be in the game.
I doubt it'll darken too many days, since licensing the legal right to use the names, images, logos, etc. of professional sports teams and their players is the common practice, not the exception. What I wish is that they'd bring on the ability to import your own face, etc. into games. They were planning on providing such an ability back when Perfect Dark (N64) was new, but it was canceled due to political reasons. I suppose the political reasons still exist for games of that genre, but it would also be a neat feature for sports games, etc. Would seem pretty easy to arrange for online games (PS2, Xbox, etc.), yet they don't provide it.
This is all about our dear sir Oliver Kahn trying to swindle money out of something he has nothing to do with. Yes they used his name and likeness, along with everyone elses'. The developer surely licensed this stuff from a players' association because we all know it's more fun when you have real names and faces to relate to. Who would you rather play hockey as ? Joe Sakic or Joe Blow ? Now this poor german fellow just wants more money than he's entitled to, like every other big name involved in a lawsuit.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Seriously, NBA, NFL, etc. make people pay for likeness rights, but we have plenty of good games with full likenesses.
It is only fair to pay for use of someone's likeness unless the work is a reasonable parody.
This is espescially true if the work is a reasonable parody of Strawberry shotcake and American McGee.
Each major sport has a Players Assosciation (Union): NHLPA (hockey), MLBPA (baseball), etc. If you pay them for the rights, you have the rights, nothing more to it.
I remember reading an article way back about Michael Jordan mis-interpreted in the game of lakers vs celtics for sega genesis.
In the game, all players were granted special moves, Jordan's special included an air reverse move... no dunks. A couple more basketball games were made with the special moves.
But these were partial reasons why Jordan insisted on being left out of the game in replacement of a mystery #99 figure on chicago bulls.
Oh, you mean when they had to concentrate on making the games balanced, fun and enjoyable, rather than who can make the prettiest facial graphics for the gloating-after-the-goal cinematic...?
;) No, that's not an example of a *good* hockey game, but it was enjoyable. Blades of Steel was a bit better.
Sign me up for NES "Ice Hockey" any day.
Random and weird software I've written.
There is a very clever way to avoid these license kind of things with names. We all know EA Fifa is already having (and of course keeps building) a nice fan (half-mod making) community.
:> Plain and Simple.
The company can simply release the game without any player names at all!! Beginning from the next day, all these half-moders[0] will release TONS of roster packs and stuff that put all the correct names for the players
[0] For me they are half-moders because EA hasn't officialy released a SDK and because they cannot modify the game code. They can only "hack" some of the graphics files and the team database files using some other tools.
If anyone has played any of the old basketball games Micheal Jordan was never in any of them. He was always Shooting Guard #23 Chicago Bulls. Thats how they got around that.
THAT IS IN SOCIALIST GERMANY!!!
In America if they get you out in public (some hermit slashdotters need not to worry about the following) you can be shot(likeness) and sold without your permission. Therefore video games with real players in Free America.