The developer behind NBA 2K16 is being sued by a company that owns the rights to tattoos NBA players sport. It shows that being super detailed and realistic isn’t always the best thing to do.
Solid Oak Sketches claims it owns the copyrights to tattoos on LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, DeAndre Jordan and others, reports Game Informer. The company says it did offer Take-Two and Visual Concepts the right to use the tattoos for $1.14 million. However, the developers declined to pay that and used the tattoos anyway.
Darren Heitner of Heitner Legal, which is representing Solid Oak, told Game Informer that Take-Two and Visual Concepts “did not take licensing seriously.”
Solid Oak is asking that Take-Two stop selling NBA 2K12 and pay damages up to $150,000 per violation with interest.
As Fox Sports notes, this lawsuit is precisely why EA Sports doesn’t use tattoos for football players in the Madden games, unless a player or artist gives their consent. ESPN notes that the artist for UFC fighter Carlos Condit won $225,000 after suing THQ for not getting his permission to use the tattoo in one of its UFC games.