Tattoo designer wins lawsuit against video game developer.

Source: El Español

Undeniably, technology has been revolutionary in the last ten years and within various areas, including the video game industry, which has developed very successful sports sagas for gamers. To make that happen, they have included realistic playable avatars, recreating their appearance as faithfully as possible: physique, facial features, hairstyles and even tattoos.

However, this latter has been frowned upon by several tattoo studios and artists, who created individual and personalized pieces for athletes, and whose designs were previously registered.

Such is the case of the tattoo artist Catherine Alexander, who in April 2018 filed a lawsuit against WWE, 2K Games Inc and the distributors associated with the WWE 2K18 video game, claiming the unauthorized use of her tattoo designs on Randy Orton’s model, particularly, in 2K video games, for which she did not receive any royalties.

More than four years later, a Court in Illinois, United Statesissued a final ruling in that case, which was basically about the illicit use of the copyright of the tattoo artist. After a series of statements by both parties, the final decision favored Catherine Alexander over the wrestling and video game companies.

The jury found that the use of the tattoos previously registered by Alexander did not comply with the fair-use requirements, and that the companies violated various copyright dispositions by using it without authorization from her creator. Given these conclusions, WWE and 2K Games will have to economically compensate the tattoo artist.

This case could set a great precedent for video games inspired by real-life personalities. Tattoo artists could become a new factor in the realization of characters within this form of entertainment, as this is not an isolated case, since the video game developer previously faced another lawsuit for the tattoos of various basketball stars present in NBA 2K. The company won on that occasion due to clauses in its contract with the NBA.