Article: EA to Be Sued Due to Tattoo on NFL Street Cover from 2004

[Shawn Zipay]

Yes, nine years after it debuted a tattoo artist is ready to sue EA over an unauthorized use of his tattoo on the cover of NFL Street. The tattoo appears on the arm of cover star Ricky Williams, whom actually has the tattoo on his arm. Turns out that the artist that made the tattoo doesn't much appreciate it showing up on the game cover.

“The artwork from which the tattoo on Mr. Williams' right and left arms was created is original ... and is copyrightable subject matter.

“Electronic Arts … has copied, reproduced, distributed, adapted and/or publicly displayed (Allen's) copyrighted work without the consent, permission or authority of (Allen) thereby directly infringing (Allen's) copyright.”

Stephen Allen is the tattoo artist in question. He became aware of the cover in 2010, six years after the game's release. Not only is he suing EA for a portion of the game's revenues, but he's also suing Ricky Williams. A similar case happened with The Hangover 2 and Mike Tyson's face tattoo. The tattoo artist that made that settled with the movie studio out of court.

Really? This is happening? Tattoo artists can sue over crap like this even though it's part of someone else's body that could then be considered their property at that point? Ugh.

[K-16]

Really? This is happening? Tattoo artists can sue over crap like this even though it's part of someone else's body that could then be considered their property at that point? Ugh.

Well seeing how two other people can make a case out of tattoo infringement (where one of them even won a settlement as you said), Mr. Allen realized he COULD do something about this after all, so two years later he hops on the bandwagon in hopes to enjoy that automatic financial reward. I imagine there will be more cases like this if the settlements keep happening. Heck I'd do it too, since court exploits don't get you banned as a person unlike video games and online accounts. On a side note, I just noticed I linked to something that's already being showcased in the similar threads section at the bottom of the forums.