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Just read a brilliant lawsuit. Not sure how far it will go, but it is very well thought out. So former college players are bringing a class action lawsuit against the video game maker of all those NCAA games for misappropriation of their likeness.

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/college_ ... e.php#more

So there you go, a way around college athletes not being paid beyond their scholarships. Only wish they made those video games when my husband was playing ball.

I kinda resemble a player from my old techmo bowl game. I'm gonna cash in!

Ineedbotox wrote:Just read a brilliant lawsuit. Not sure how far it will go, but it is very well thought out. So former college players are bringing a class action lawsuit against the video game maker of all those NCAA games for misappropriation of their likeness.

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/college_ ... e.php#more

So there you go, a way around college athletes not being paid beyond their scholarships. Only wish they made those video games when my husband was playing ball.

And next are they going to sue newspapers and sports magazines and the networks for profiting by using their images?

Brilliant lawsuit? Give me a break.

line up everyone... here is your $10 from NCAA 2010...

dstubb wrote:
Brilliant lawsuit? Give me a break.

That's YOUR opinion. However, if you were a student athlete who worked your butt off and made tons of $$$ for your school, and then on top of that, started generating more $$$ for the NCAA through licensing fees on games that are tremendously successful, you might feel differently.

Hate lawyers and lawsuits if you want, but from MY PERSPECTIVE, this was an incredibly well thought out legal argument. These athletes are not allowed to make money and cannot benefit from their own likenesses, yet the NCAA is using their images down to a tee and making the money for themselves.

I just posted the article because I know a lot of people on here play these games. Heck, there are probably players who have seen their own likenesses on the games. Since we don't have a boatload of players heading to the NFL, I just thought someone might want to check it out. Relax dude. You don't have to be so snarky.

Ineedbotox wrote:

dstubb wrote:
Brilliant lawsuit? Give me a break.

That's YOUR opinion. However, if you were a student athlete who worked your butt off and made tons of $$$ for your school, and then on top of that, started generating more $$$ for the NCAA through licensing fees on games that are tremendously successful, you might feel differently.

Lots of *students* work their butts off and don't get free educations. In the BCS conferences not only do they get free educations at very expensive schools, but they also get a free tryout for the NFL.

Ineedbotox wrote:Hate lawyers and lawsuits if you want, but from MY PERSPECTIVE, this was an incredibly well thought out legal argument. These athletes are not allowed to make money and cannot benefit from their own likenesses, yet the NCAA is using their images down to a tee and making the money for themselves.

They don't benefit from a free education, accolades of thousands, TV appearances, media attention?

Ineedbotox wrote:

dstubb wrote:
Brilliant lawsuit? Give me a break.

That's YOUR opinion. However, if you were a student athlete who worked your butt off and made tons of $$$ for your school, and then on top of that, started generating more $$$ for the NCAA through licensing fees on games that are tremendously successful, you might feel differently.

Hate lawyers and lawsuits if you want, but from MY PERSPECTIVE, this was an incredibly well thought out legal argument. These athletes are not allowed to make money and cannot benefit from their own likenesses, yet the NCAA is using their images down to a tee and making the money for themselves.

I just posted the article because I know a lot of people on here play these games. Heck, there are probably players who have seen their own likenesses on the games. Since we don't have a boatload of players heading to the NFL, I just thought someone might want to check it out. Relax dude. You don't have to be so snarky.

The "pay" for playing in the NCAA is a free education.

Ineedbotox wrote:

dstubb wrote:
Brilliant lawsuit? Give me a break.

That's YOUR opinion. However, if you were a student athlete who worked your butt off and made tons of $$$ for your school, and then on top of that, started generating more $$$ for the NCAA through licensing fees on games that are tremendously successful, you might feel differently.

Hate lawyers and lawsuits if you want, but from MY PERSPECTIVE, this was an incredibly well thought out legal argument. These athletes are not allowed to make money and cannot benefit from their own likenesses, yet the NCAA is using their images down to a tee and making the money for themselves.

I just posted the article because I know a lot of people on here play these games. Heck, there are probably players who have seen their own likenesses on the games. Since we don't have a boatload of players heading to the NFL, I just thought someone might want to check it out. Relax dude. You don't have to be so snarky.

I suppose that depends on your definition of "likeness".

Yes, the games will have players wearing the correct numbers, and they'll usually get the height/weight/hometown/skin tone/etc pretty accurate. Beyond that there are no likenesses being used.

EA does NOT do motion capturing on NCAA athletes to capture their specific quirks. EA does NOT do face scanning or anything like that to make the players look anything like their real life counterparts. Unlike the Madden games the NCAA games faces are pretty generic. The skill ratings in NCAA are based upon the perceived abilities of the real life players, but those skills are arbitrary and created by EA, so I don't see how they could claim that was a "likeness" either.


NONE of the player names are in the game, although EA does allow the ability to edit names so you can manually enter the names if you wish. They also allow downloading roster files, so people can edit all of the names and post them online for others to download.

None of these players are going to get any money. All this lawsuit might do is ruin the game for many of us by forcing EA to remove the name edit ability, and the ability to download roster files. Unless you think a players' height/weight/hometown/skin tone information constitutes a likeness violation this lawsuit doesn't have a leg to stand on.

As to your overall premise that these athletes are making millions for their universities, whatever. They're getting a free education and that was the deal they signed up for when they received their scholarship. Nobody made them take that deal, but they did. They could have played Arena football or in the CFL if they wanted to bide their time until NFL eligible, they CHOSE to give up the right to make individual profit in return for the exposure and free education of NCAA football.

The problem with paying players is that not all players are making money for their universities/NCAA. If you allow universities to pay their players that is only going to further the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" in D1A football. If the NCAA were to give some small stipend to every player (in equal amounts) at every school, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I don't know where that money would come from.

Bottom line players signed up for this when they signed that letter of intent. They had other options and they chose to take the free education and exposure of college ball. By taking that they waived their right to individually profit off of their abilities on the field. You won't see me crying for any D1A football players anytime soon.

hammb wrote: Bottom line players signed up for this when they signed that letter of intent. They had other options and they chose to take the free education and exposure of college ball. By taking that they waived their right to individually profit off of their abilities on the field. You won't see me crying for any D1A football players anytime soon.

My husband got a free education at a D1 BCS school. He is grateful for that education every single day. However, I think what some people miss is the huge amount of benefit the schools are making off these athletes. The football teams are the cash cows of the universities (at least in the major conferences they are).

These athletes are giving more than just 4 years of their life up for that scholarship money. The wear and tear on their bodies lasts the rest of their life.

Not asking anyone to "cry" for them, but I guarantee you, they earn every penny of their scholarships, and then some.

Ineedbotox wrote:My husband got a free education at a D1 BCS school. He is grateful for that education every single day. However, I think what some people miss is the huge amount of benefit the schools are making off these athletes. The football teams are the cash cows of the universities (at least in the major conferences they are).

These athletes are giving more than just 4 years of their life up for that scholarship money. The wear and tear on their bodies lasts the rest of their life.

Not asking anyone to "cry" for them, but I guarantee you, they earn every penny of their scholarships, and then some.

Ineedbotox wrote:

hammb wrote: Bottom line players signed up for this when they signed that letter of intent. They had other options and they chose to take the free education and exposure of college ball. By taking that they waived their right to individually profit off of their abilities on the field. You won't see me crying for any D1A football players anytime soon.

My husband got a free education at a D1 BCS school. He is grateful for that education every single day. However, I think what some people miss is the huge amount of benefit the schools are making off these athletes. The football teams are the cash cows of the universities (at least in the major conferences they are).

These athletes are giving more than just 4 years of their life up for that scholarship money. The wear and tear on their bodies lasts the rest of their life.

Not asking anyone to "cry" for them, but I guarantee you, they earn every penny of their scholarships, and then some.

There are several ways to get through college. With most of them you have to pay one way or another.

Ineedbotox wrote:

hammb wrote: Bottom line players signed up for this when they signed that letter of intent. They had other options and they chose to take the free education and exposure of college ball. By taking that they waived their right to individually profit off of their abilities on the field. You won't see me crying for any D1A football players anytime soon.

My husband got a free education at a D1 BCS school. He is grateful for that education every single day. However, I think what some people miss is the huge amount of benefit the schools are making off these athletes. The football teams are the cash cows of the universities (at least in the major conferences they are).

These athletes are giving more than just 4 years of their life up for that scholarship money. The wear and tear on their bodies lasts the rest of their life.

Not asking anyone to "cry" for them, but I guarantee you, they earn every penny of their scholarships, and then some.

Oh I don't disagree with you one bit. They kill themselves and bust their butts for the team/university; won't deny that one bit. I agree they earn their scholarships through hard work, and many of them will never play their sport again. I also don't deny that the schools benefit greatly from the efforts the athletes put forth; if they didn't they wouldn't be giving them the free education.

But this is a deal and the terms of it are agreed upon when the student athlete signs the scholarship letter of intent. They can not personally benefit from their abilities in their sport for 4 years. They also must advance towards a degree, they must follow team rules, etc. In return they receive 4(5, really) years of free school, tons of television exposure, and generally a 4 year place to put their talents in the eyes of those that may be willing to pay them for it in the future.

I don't believe that D1 athletes have an easy ride, by any stretch. I also don't feel sorry for them that they do not get money from the game company. This is all part of the deal that is entered upon when they sign the scholarship offer. A major part of that deal is that the players in the cash sports (football & baksetball) must realize they are funding the education/training for all the other sports that lose tremendous amounts of money. It may not be fair, but if you want to start paying the athletes in the cash sports you are signing the death sentence for all minor sports. The current system makes sense and it has worked for a long time.

Ineedbotox wrote:Just read a brilliant lawsuit. Not sure how far it will go, but it is very well thought out. So former college players are bringing a class action lawsuit against the video game maker of all those NCAA games for misappropriation of their likeness.

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/college_ ... e.php#more

So there you go, a way around college athletes not being paid beyond their scholarships. Only wish they made those video games when my husband was playing ball.

Of course you like it, you're one of "them".

Some shyster brings up a BS sham-of-a-lawsuit and is going to make tons of $$$ off this joke.

How about instead of the pampered student-athlete, they go after the viseo game maker for HALO and the other video games that feature Army Special Forces. These men risk their lives for the country. If anyone is going to make some money off of these video games, let it be those who defend our freedoms.

transfer2BGSU wrote:

Ineedbotox wrote:Just read a brilliant lawsuit. Not sure how far it will go, but it is very well thought out. So former college players are bringing a class action lawsuit against the video game maker of all those NCAA games for misappropriation of their likeness.

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/college_ ... e.php#more

So there you go, a way around college athletes not being paid beyond their scholarships. Only wish they made those video games when my husband was playing ball.

Of course you like it, you're one of "them".

Some shyster brings up a BS sham-of-a-lawsuit and is going to make tons of $$$ off this joke.

How about instead of the pampered student-athlete, they go after the viseo game maker for HALO and the other video games that feature Army Special Forces. These men risk their lives for the country. If anyone is going to make some money off of these video games, let it be those who defend our freedoms.

I once played a video game with a fairly tall white guy of average build. Who do I see about my check?

I'm waiting for NCAA Track and Field-Old School, "where you get to jump against old school high jumpers when they're old". Seriously, I gotta agree with Botox-this is a new wrinkle (yes) in the NCAA vs. athletes thing. Pictures in a magazine taken in a public setting are clearly different- you're no more protected in that setting than Paris Hilton on a night out.

Designing a profitable enterprise around someone's likeness without their permission seems dodgy.