EA will pay $ 60 million fine for unauthorized use of names and portraits of athlete

[ahhming]

Thousands of current and former college athletes could receive money as a result of settlements from a series of lawsuits stemming from the use of (American) football and men’s basketball players’ names and likenesses in EA Games such as Madden and NBA Live

16,200 athletes, most of them will get at least $ 1,000 in compensation, while some $ 6,700 or more.

 

Settlements of a series of lawsuits relating to the use of college football and men's college basketball players' names, images and likenesses in NCAA-branded video games are likely to result in many of the affected athletes getting at least $1,000 and could result in some receiving $6,700 or more, new legal filings show.

 

 

The documents were submitted late Thursday night to U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken as part of the process to gain her final approval of a combined $60 million in settlements of claims against the NCAA, video game manufacturer Electronic Arts and Collegiate Licensing Company, the nation's leading collegiate trademark licensing and marketing firm.

Thursday night's filings stated that nearly 16,200 athletes had completed forms, which are still being reviewed by a claims-administration firm.

According to the documents, that figure means about 16% of the athletes eligible for the $40 million settlement involving EA and CLC have filed claims and about 24% of the athletes eligible for the $20 million settlement involving the NCAA have done so.

Source:

http://gameshockers.weebly.com/ea-to-pay-athletes-60-million-in-player-likeness-lawsuit.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2015/07/03/college-athletes-video-game-settlement-payout-ncaa/29663857/

[Kherm]

I always wondered how EA was able to get away with all of those people in Madden

[Albatross]

What? I assumed they had the rights to it. hahaha

[dragosudeki]

They should make claims that NCAA players should get paid for playing... Don't think they get any compensation for playing during the March Madness, even though that event gets quite popular.

[Sir Asvald]

LOL! serves them right! 

[Lotus]

[sof006]

Oh well... Pocket money for EA. May as well be a slap on the wrist to them "Tut tut, naughty. Don't do that again.".... "EA: Whatever"

[CommandMan7]

From what I can gather from http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Madden_NFL , between 2003 and 2014, about 53,250,000 copies of madden were sold. At $60 each, that's $3,195,000,000. 60 million is 1.87% of that. I'm very sure EA will gladly continue to use names and images if that's the kind of return they get on their money.

[dalomo]

They should make claims that NCAA players should get paid for playing... Don't think they get any compensation for playing during the March Madness, even though that event gets quite popular.

NCAA players get plenty of compensation. Not direct cash in their hands, but they get free school, free housing, free dining plans, free transportation often, and the list goes on. most of all, they get FREE SCHOOL, as a uni student paying my own way through school here in the US, I have no sympathy for the hundreds of student athletes at my school getting a free degree, or most of one if they leave early (like in football).  they are already being compensated 100k or more in terms of free school.

[Misanthrope]

NCAA players get plenty of compensation. Not direct cash in their hands, but they get free school, free housing, free dining plans, free transportation often, and the list goes on. most of all, they get FREE SCHOOL, as a uni student paying my own way through school here in the US, I have no sympathy for the hundreds of student athletes at my school getting a free degree, or most of one if they leave early (like in football).  they are already being compensated 100k or more in terms of free school.

 

[dragosudeki]

NCAA players get plenty of compensation. Not direct cash in their hands, but they get free school, free housing, free dining plans, free transportation often, and the list goes on. most of all, they get FREE SCHOOL, as a uni student paying my own way through school here in the US, I have no sympathy for the hundreds of student athletes at my school getting a free degree, or most of one if they leave early (like in football).  they are already being compensated 100k or more in terms of free school.

Is their school truly free? They are most likely taking all the easy useless courses, so that they can focus on improving their ability. Your taking courses that get you a career. The courses they take are just courses that allows them to remain a student at that school, so that they can play. If the athletes didn't play during March Madness, there would simply be no March Madness. There really is no argument as to why the funds that are gained from March Madness does not directly go into the athletes that make March Madness what it is...

 

If we applied your argument to other things, it simply wouldn't work. You are saying thing "Because company X is already rich and gets many government incentives and cuts, they shouldn't be earning any money at all".

[SeanBond]

I would love to see madden die off already.

[gill2k]

Because Lebron James needs more money... :lol:

[Goussy]

All I was thinking when I read this title was, "dammit hoop dawg".

[Tim Drake]

Because Lebron James needs more money... :lol:

Correction, EA needs less

[dalomo]

I would agree with you, but I have a brother in the NCAA and I realize how hard it is.

 

First off not all of them get free tuition, that is only a very small select of D 1-A athletes (1-2% out of ALL the athletes in the NCAA) in a very select number of sports (basketball and football primarily) .A good number of student athletes in the NCAA only get half of their tuition cut off and most of the time it's even less than that. D1-A football and basketball players do get free housing and dining, but again, that is only 1-2% out of all of the student athletes that play in the NCAA. The majority of them do not get free housing and/or dining and many more have to pay for their books.

 

So, what you're really looking at is about 2% (that's being generous) out of all of the student athletes that get some REAL compensation. Not to mention they have 5+ hour work outs daily (even more if you play D 1-A), games, and most of them still have jobs as well as school work to do. So yes, a few of them get plenty of compensation, even though in the long run it doesn't mean much, but the majority of them barely get anything at all and that majority still have jobs to go to, classes to attend, and bills to pay.

 

A lot of the kids are barely getting by on their scholarship, and yet the NCAA is a multi-billion dollar business. This is why EA stopped doing NCAA Football and also the same reason why College Hoops stopped after 2007 - simply because the college students that were in the games were not getting paid when they really should be getting paid for it.

While I agree with you that they don't have it easy, very few people do either. I'm fortunate enough to have a paid internship right now because i got lucky and knew some people, but lots of people work unpaid internships to get experience in their field, just to make 40k a year once they graduate. while athletes, if they go pro, make magnitudes more. But yes, only a very small percentage of them go pro. But one thing you have to look at is, they're playing by choice, no one is forcing them to play collegiate ball. I do, however, think that they should personally get the money that EA is paying. They're the ones depicted in the game and there's no reason anybody (or any organization) but them should get the "damages" paid out for them being in the game.

[Tech_Dreamer]

That'll do EA, That'll do..

 

[FreebaseJosh]

Wow surprising this didn't happen sooner with all the games made in the past years.

[theninja35]

That'll do EA, That'll do..

 

"EA Shit-It's in the ass!"

[frostin1990]

Haha taste of their own medicine. You deserve it EA.

[iMikeTheKing]

From what I can gather from http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Madden_NFL , between 2003 and 2014, about 53,250,000 copies of madden were sold. At $60 each, that's $3,195,000,000. 60 million is 1.87% of that. I'm very sure EA will gladly continue to use names and images if that's the kind of return they get on their money.

This is about NCAA not Madden. NFL players are compensated in Madden because there are no rules against receiving money or other forms of compensation.

[dalomo]

A very, VERY small number of them actually go pro - probably around 0.5% of the athletes in the NCAA make play their sport professionally. 

 

And well, they are playing by choice - but if they are on scholarship, they are forced to play or they lose their scholarship and potentially get kicked out of school. So while it was their choice to take the scholarship, they have no real choice whether or not to practice and play for the team.

 

It really stinks tbh. The system is flawed in a lot of ways

yeah i mentioned it was a small percentage of them go pro. And you're kinda talking in circles, you're saying that they aren't really there for a degree since they're just taking filler classes, but then you said if they stop playing they'll lose their scholarship, but that just puts them back down on the level of the rest of us. I'm not saying the system isn't flawed, but there should be other ways than straight up paying college kids. That will turn schools into even more sports focused institutions. Schools are meant to be institutions of higher learning first, then sports on the side, but nowadays that's not usually the case.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

Oh well... Pocket money for EA. May as well be a slap on the wrist to them "Tut tut, naughty. Don't do that again.".... "EA: Whatever"

 

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[NickTheMajin]

I think people are misunderstanding this. EA isn't paying professional athletes. They have the right to use the pro athlete names, likenesses and portraits. They have to pay for the NCAA athletes. It has to do with the NCAA games not Madden/NBA Live. 

 

And its a fucking damn shame. We'll never have another NCAA sports game again because of this garbage. NCAA games used to just vaguely represent real players with no names but with their numbers and authentic stats and attributes for each player. But now we can't even have that. 

[Takata]

yeah i mentioned it was a small percentage of them go pro. And you're kinda talking in circles, you're saying that they aren't really there for a degree since they're just taking filler classes, but then you said if they stop playing they'll lose their scholarship, but that just puts them back down on the level of the rest of us. I'm not saying the system isn't flawed, but there should be other ways than straight up paying college kids. That will turn schools into even more sports focused institutions. Schools are meant to be institutions of higher learning first, then sports on the side, but nowadays that's not usually the case.

No-one really chooses to take the useless Swahili classes. They just take them because that's the only way they can keep their scholarship. The alternative is to become a college dropout with no higher education at all.

 

Why not pay them? The quality of the education they actually get suggests that they're athletes first, and students second, as much as you would like for that to be the other way around.