Source: USA TODAY
One of the named plaintiffs in a anti-trust lawsuit concerning the use of college athletes’ names and likenesses said in a deposition that the avatars in several versions of a video game that are supposed to represent him do not resemble him and that the same face also appears on other players representing other teams.
Former Connecticut guard Tate George was deposed in March 2012 by lawyers representing each of the defendants in the case – the NCAA, video game manufacturer Electronic Arts and Collegiate Licensing Co., the nation’s leading collegiate trademark licensing and marketing firm.
Portions of the deposition were made public Monday in a filing with a U.S. District Court in California by lawyers for EA and CLC in connection with their opposition to the case being certified as a class action. A hearing on class certification is scheduled for June 20.
If the case is certified as a class action, it likely would bring thousands of current and former college athletes into the case and potentially place billions of dollars in damages at stake.
At issue is whether the defendants have illegally used the names and likenesses of college football and men’s basketball players.
George and the other plaintiffs, including former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, allege that the defendants violated anti-trust law by conspiring to fix at zero the amount of compensation athletes can receive for the use of their names, images and likenesses in products or media while they are in school and by requiring athletes to sign forms under which they allegedly relinquish in perpetuity all rights pertaining to the use of the names, images and likenesses in ways including TV contracts, rebroadcasts of games, and video game, jersey and other apparel sales.
Documents filed by the plaintiffs last fall included e-mails by, and among, NCAA and EA employees that, according to the plaintiffs, indicate the NCAA knew EA made its products with the purpose of having the game characters “match as closely as possible the real-life characteristics” of actual student-athletes. The plaintiffs’ lawyers also said the NCAA was aware that other companies had developed ways for the names of actual student-athletes to be added to the games and “knowingly tolerated” it.
In the deposition unveiled Monday, George was presented with pages showing frame grabs from the 2006 version of an EA Sports game in which past college basketball teams, including George’s 1990 Connecticut team, are depicted.
He was then questioned by Gregory Curtner about whether the player shown resembles George.
Curtner: “But you did wear Number 32?”
George: “Yes.”
Q: And do you agree that that Number 32 belonged to the University of Connecticut, not to you?
A: From what I was told, yes.
Q: And, certainly, the Huskies logo belongs to the University of Connecticut and not to you?
A: Correct.
Q: And you would not say that that looks like you as you appeared in 1990?
A: No. I’m cuter.
Curtner goes on the ask whether the same avatar also is used for a player from the 1987 Syracuse team.
Curtner: But you can confirm that it’s the same person in a different uniform, or the same facial avatar?
George: It looks that way, yes.
Q: And, again, this is not you?
A: No.
Curtner asked the same questions and got the same basic answer from George about an avatar for a player from the 1983 Virginia team.
Curtner then went through a similar exercise with George with screen shots from the 2008 version of an EA Sports game. Curtner established with George the look of a player shown as wearing No. 32 for Connecticut’s 1990 team, whereupon George said the avatar did not look like him but did look like avatars associated with nearly a dozen other teams, some from other years.
The exchange ends with Curtner asking: “Long Beach State, North Carolina State, and Arizona, 1997. These all have the same face, none of them are you, and they all have a variety of different sizes, weights, and positions, correct?”
George’s reply: “Correct.”
Curtner and George then went through similar exchanges concerning two other versions of EA Sports games.
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