EA was Delivered a Hard Blow Today in the Legal Battle Against Madden NFL's Original Creator

[Shawn Zipay]

Today, a jury in the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Robin Antonick, the original designer and developer of the Madden NFL football series. You may recall hearing about this case back in April of this year.

The case alleges that EA and Antonick signed a series of publishing and development contracts, culminating in a 1986 agreement that requires EA to pay him royalties on any derivative works related to the original version of EA Madden, including current annual releases, and prohibits EA from using his confidential information. The lawsuit claims that EA failed to pay millions of dollars in royalties owed to Antonick and to keep his work confidential as required by the contract.

Though EA has lost the verdict, the amount owed to Antonick has not yet been determined. He claims that EA owes him royalties totalling more than $200 million in revenues for games released from 1990 to 1996, including punitive damages and disgorgement of the $5 billion in profits that the series has generated. Games released from 1997 to 2013 will be tried at a later date.

In today’s ruling the jury tackled the statute of limitations, specifically whether the deadline for filing a lawsuit had already passed. It found in Antonick’s favor, ruling that he did not suspect any wrongdoing by EA before 2005. It also found that a reasonable person would not have known about the claims before 2005.

“This is a major validation of Mr. Antonick’s testimony,” said Rob Carey, Antonick’s attorney. “This was by far EA’s strongest defense, and the jury’s verdict unanimously supported Mr. Antonick, which also means the jury probably thinks some significant information was concealed.”

“Now the case goes to the merits, where we have irrefutable evidence,” he continued. “We are confident that we will be able to demonstrate that EA failed to live up to its agreement with Mr. Antonick and lied to him about the use of his protected work product in the games.”

[cikame]

Man i hate law.
I'm totally ignorant about this case and these verdicts but the whole thing feels just, yukky.

[stilla-killa]

To sum it it cikame is that EA failed to adhere to the contract. But my question is why did Antonik wait until now to bring charges against EA?

[Chibabreatha]

That's what I was just thinking....I think I'll wait 20 years to get my millions....wtf

[DunkinSPE]

To shed some light on it in layman's terms, pretend you are an inventor. Pretend you invented a custom small engine for a vehicle and then signed a contract with a company that wanted to use it in a car they make. The agreement is for them to pay you a dollar amount for each unit sold with that engine in it. Flash forward a few years. Turns out your little engine was a darn good design. You've been getting paid for your design under the contract, but it turns out that engine has been put into newer vehicles with some added on parts that don't change the base engine design but the company doesn't pay you for all the new automotive lines that use that engine because they say it's a new design. Yet if you open up the engine compartment and take all the new stuff off you have your original engine design. Wouldn't you be upset about thousands of additional versions of your design being out there and not getting paid for them?

They key in this case is the contract specified payment for "derivative" works. In other words future builds based off his design. For a build to be a derivative build it has to occur at a Future date which is key in this case because EA did not specify a time for the contract to expire thus leaving the original designer the right to compensation regardless of the age of his original design.

Basically the designer had a darn good contract drawn up and EA was hoping he wouldn't find out they were using his original work to make $$$$$. They tried to cheat him. He found out and enforced the contract. That's how business law and contracts work. You agree to an exchange, terms, and a time period. If parties do what they promised all is well. If not then you go to court and sort it out.