NFL Veterans Sue Over Madden

NFL and video game fans count down the days ‘til August every year — the month Electronic Arts releases the popular video game Madden NFL. This year EA better hope they sell a lot of games, because they may need the money to defend a class action lawsuit filed by angry NFL veterans.

The class action lawsuit pits EA against 6,000 retired NFL players over the content in Madden NFL ’09. The lawsuit alleges EA “knowingly and intentionally” used the retired players’ likenesses without their authorization in order to avoid paying licensing fees.

“EA’s commercial exploitation of retired NFL players is both blatant and prolific,” the lawsuit says. The 2009 edition of Madden NFL contains over 140 “historic teams” containing the likenesses of thousands of retired NFL players. The problem, the lawsuit claims, is that Madden NFL ’09 uses statistics and positions of NFL veterans but changes uniform numbers and removes names from the players in order to circumvent paying the fees.

According to the class action lawsuit, “The only significant detail that EA changes from the real-life retired NFL players is their jersey number.” Even though EA “scrambled” player numbers in the game’s classic rosters, the game is “designed so that consumers of the Madden NFL video game franchise will have no difficulty identifying who the ‘historic’ players are.” The lawsuit also points out that gamers are able to freely edit the names and uniform numbers of players to include the right information.

This is not the first time Electronic Arts has been sued over using players’ likenesses without paying licensing fees. In 2009, former Arizona State University quarterback Sam Keller sued EA and the NCAA for using his name and face in previous installments of NCAA Football. This goes against NCAA rules that prohibit the commercial licensing of student athletes because it violates their rights to control and profit form the use of their names and likenesses. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of all NCAA football and basketball players featured in EA’s NCAA video games.

The NFL veterans’ class action lawsuit is seeking damages for the veteran players and an injunction barring EA from all profits earned from the sale of Madden NFL video games containing class members’ likenesses.