Take-Two Interactive is being sued by Randy Orton's tattoo artist over his depiction and, more importantly, the depiction of his tattoos in WWE 2K. This challenge introduces further peril to the annualized sports game series, which has already taken a year-long break in 2020 after the disastrous launch of WWE 2K20 last year.
This isn't the first time legal issues have been raised concerning tattoos, and it isn't the first time Take-Two has been involved in those disputes either. Tattoos are creative illustrations just like any other piece of art, and they're just as eligible for copyright. Unfortunately for Take-Two and other game developers, the copyright belongs not to the person with the tattoos but to the tattoo artist. Some of these artists have argued that by digitally recreating these tattoos on virtual basketball players like Kobe Bryant or LeBron James, the developers are committing copyright infringement.
A new lawsuit has arisen concerning the tattoos of wrestler Randy Orton. The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Orton's tattoo artist, Catherine Alexander, is aiming to sue Take-Two for the representation of Orton's ink in the game. Take-Two's allegedly criminal behavior was first brought to Alexander's attention when she learned that World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. wanted to produce fake tattoo sleeves to allow fans to pretend to be Randy Orton. When Alexander reached out to WWE to negotiate, she was laughed away. This led to her contacting a federal judge in Illinois, who gave her a partial summary judgement establishing that both WWE and Take-Two had copied her work. The judge ruled that the matter is triable, however, so Alexander will have to take both parties to court.
Tattoo copyrights are a surprisingly complex issue. It's generally accepted that a person with tattoo can display it proudly in public or, in the case of these professional athletes, on TV, without issue. But in order to represent these characters in the game, Take-Two has to recreate them digitally, including their tattoos. This is where the problem starts. Last March Take-Two was sued over the tattoos featured on LeBron James, Kenyon Martin, and Eric Bledsoe. The company beat that claim by convincing the judge that the replication of the basketball stars' tattoos wasn't substantially similar to the creation of tattoos on the real basketball players, and that there was reason enough to assume that the tattoos were fair use. Take-Two won that lawsuit handily, but they might have less success this time.
Content creators have every right to want to prevent their creations from being stolen. On the surface, that looks like exactly what's happening here; Catherine Alexander's tattoos are being recreated without her consent. But the fact that her art exists on the personage of Randy Orton, who WWE has every right to replicate, complicates matters quite severely. Time will tell how this dispute plays out, but no matter the outcome, it's sure to have heavy implications for the future of WWE 2K.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter