John Thompson is obviously gonna lose his Court Case and the others are most likely cry babies ask for money from a Gaming Giant. sad.

Luckily EA is a publisher, not a developer, so can spend all the time in court it likes while the devs make the games.

EA is a publisher and developer. Many of their sports titles are made by their own devs.

What?? No football screaming seagulls?? T_T

@ hjd uk

EA is also a developer. There's EA Canada and EA Tiburon are development studios.

It's only 25,000 for EA that's pretty much nothing... if you were this guy you'd probably do the same thing.

Best of luck to them in this next of many inevitable lawsuits.

25 grand? that's a pittance for EA to make such large inroads into the furry community. If they are successful it will prove quite lucrative for EA since furries have quite a bit of disposable income. very strategic move on EA's part.

This guy sure is foaming at the mouth to get his money huh?
Not surprising seeing that the Browns do have one of the more rabid fan bases.
Don't think EA will just roll over on this one
All in all 25,000 should fetch quite a lot in the Cleve

It's a dawggone shame...

I see a point in what the guy is doing, but unless the guy owns the image and likeness of that dog mask, his case is groundless and stupid. Imagine if someone tried to sue someone on a similar claim while wearing a Heath Ledger Joker mask in a unique location. The location becomes irrelevant and it's about the ownership of the image and likeness. Same deal.

Does anyone watch Brown games? Nearly all the dedicated fans have dog masks.

What a douche.

Does he fucking know who EA is? He might as well go sue Microsoft or Donald Trump.

Although granted we're about due for a stupid lawsuit story by now.

There's probably writing on the back of his ticket into the stadium that specifically states his image or likeness may be used in perpetuity by the NFL with no further compensation due to him.

I think there's a limited liability with a ticket. Your image and likeness can be used for broadcast/rebroadcast if the game is televised. There's nothing implied for your image and likeness adapted to other forms of media without written consent. Meaning your image, though. A dog mask would not qualify. Again, unless this guy has rights to the character or face, he has no case, but it's not a matter of the NFL's rights to the fans. If that were the case, we'd all be owned by the NFL.

Honestly, for all the trouble the guy is going through, they can make it all go away with a patch. For all their efforts in trying to add some character to what is otherwise a cookie cutter process and roster update for them each year, this pretty much guarantees that they'll kill off anything that even looks potentially original or libelous to a crowd shot.

Way to go asshole. You made Madden even more tedious and boring.

I've done an image search for this cover, and I don't see him anywhere on it. Back cover, maybe?

Dex, it's just his likeness in general, I think. I know for a fact there were fans in the game for the Browns who looked like him. Not sure if a screencap of that was on the back cover or not, though.

I wish someone would sue all Americans who have ever brought up greedy, pointless lawsuits like this. Their charge? Greed, and the spreading of litigiousness throughout the known world. The damages? 50% of everything they own.

I hope EA takes him to court and soundly defeats him. He should definitely incur court costs for wasting their time. A trivial 25k isn't the point; it's the principle at stake.