Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
Recently a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas ruled that copyright infringement claims filed by retired professional wrestler Booker T. Huffman (known as Booker T) against Activision, the developer of the Call of Duty video games, should proceed to trial. The infringement claims revolve around alleged similarities between promotional artwork for the Call of Duty 4 video game and a poster depicting Huffman’s in-ring persona G.I. Bro.
In 2015, Huffman commissioned a poster from the artist, Erwin Arroza, to promote his comic, G.I. Bro and the Dragon of Death. The comic stars a “special operations hero called G.I. Bro,” which bears a striking resemblance to Huffman in his G.I. Bro persona. Following creation of the poster, Huffman distributed copies of the poster at comic conventions and other events.
In 2018, Activision commissioned Petrol Advertising, Inc. to create a series of marketing images of the characters in its Black Ops 4 video game. Black Ops 4, which was released in 2018, was a prequel to the third Black Ops game, and featured many of the same characters as the prior version including the character David “Prophet” Wilkes. The ad agency hired live models and conducted several photoshoots with them in order to create the allegedly infringing marketing images. The ad agency then created a “composite” by adding graphical elements to create the artwork. Activision used this resulting artwork in various promotional posters, billboards, and special edition packaging, some of which included the allegedly infringing “Prophet Image” that is the focus of the lawsuit. Continue reading ›