6,000 Former NFL Players File Joint Lawsuit Against EA

03 Aug 2010 at 23:07:54 by Peter Parrish

Former NFL footballer Tony Davis is attempting to bring a class action suit consisting of "approximately 6,000" retired NFL players against EA, for the "unlawful use" of player likenesses in the John Madden series of games.

You may recall an individual lawsuit being pursued against EA by Jim Brown over the company's use of a player he considered very similar to himself in one of Madden's historic teams. Davis' suit is being pursued on the same grounds, but is clearly much wider in scope.

The legal papers (which were filed on 29 July and can be viewed in pdf form here) state "EA's commercial exploitation of of retired NFL players is both blatant and prolific as the 2009 edition of the NFL Madden video game contained over 140 "historic teams" containing likenesses of thousands of retired NFL players."

Davis cites the example of Madden NFL 09's 1979 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team, which features a player with identical stats to himself - save for wearing an (editable) number 37 jersey instead of Davis' number 27.

The suit is aiming to recover damages and "disgorgement" of profits attributable to EA's use of historic player likenesses, as well as legal costs and "any other relief" to which the players may be entitled by law.

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