Manuel Noriega has sued Activision/Blizzard over the use of his name and likeness in Call off Duty: Black Ops II. Link:http://www.themarysue.com/noriega-sues-activision/.
I thought that if you are a famous public figure, you pretty much were screwed on this. Any of our legal experts want to venture if he stands a chance of winning?
IANAL (yet). And I am definitely not an expert in this field, which is probably most closely within Ascenray’s bailiwick.
At common law, even the most public of figures has the right to control how his name or likeness is used. Some US jurisdictions have held that a famous person’s name and likeness cannot be “misappropriated” unless there is a misleading element involved - say, a picture of Obama with a caption claiming that he drinks Sam Adams beer, assuming he doesn’t.
For example, Johnny Carson successfully sued a toilet manufacturer because it misappropriated one of his attributes by branding their product “Here’s Johnny toilets”.
There is an exception for “news and commentary” - obviously Obama can’t sue CNN for using video footage of him without permission - but a video game is unlikely to enjoy this protection. A more apt exclusion is for “creative works”, which is the one that protects people like Oliver Stone (JFK, etc.) I don’t know that this has ever been applied to a video game but I see no reason why it couldn’t be.
Noriega is apparently suing in California, which has a specific statutory exception for most recognizable attributes of public figures. So I don’t see him winning.
I didn’t even know he was still alive. Even so, he’s not doing much else these days; may as well play the American game of Ow! My Lawyer!
SNL has been doing skits about famous figures for 30+ years, and I doubt they got permission every time.
Other difficulties: [ul]
[li]Noriega isn’t a citizen or legal resident (was captured in a foreign country that no longer wants him and has remained in US prison ever since). [/li][li] Activision’s depiction of him is similar to his actual real-world activities. [/li] He’s a terrible terrible person. (This isn’t relevant in any court of law, but I needed something to round out the list)[/ul]
Parody and satire are specifically protected, thanks be to the Blessed Bill Gaines and his ten-ton stones.
Using a character in “serious” fiction might not be as protected. I can’t write a novel in which Kim Kardashian sneaks out to be a street whore, for example.
[quote=“dstarfire, post:4, topic:693280”]
[li]Noriega isn’t a citizen or legal resident (was captured in a foreign country that no longer wants him and has remained in US prison ever since).[/li][/QUOTE]
Nitpick - he was extradited to Panama on October 1, 2011 and is serving time there now.
(from Manuel Noriega - Wikipedia)
France and Panama both requested Noriega’s extradition in 2007 for trial on murder and money laundering charges. The U.S. extradited him to France in 2010 where he was tried and sentenced to seven years, then the French extradited him to Panama in 2011 where he is currently serving a 20 year sentence.
Oh yes you can make her into a street ho, thanks to Larry Flynt.
Flynt came along more than 20 years later and stood on Gaines’s shoulders. Not to minimize him, but he’s been credited with a little too much initiative in place of standing up for what was already established. Gaines was a nobody who had no precedent and the weight of Congress against him, and he changed the face of libel law for the better.
We couldn’t have simply dismembered him and sent the various components around so every one of these countries could have a piece of him all to theirselves?
[quote=“dstarfire, post:4, topic:693280”]
SNL has been doing skits about famous figures for 30+ years, and I doubt they got permission every time.
Other difficulties: [ul]
[li]Noriega isn’t a citizen or legal resident (was captured in a foreign country that no longer wants him and has remained in US prison ever since). [/li][li] Activision’s depiction of him is similar to his actual real-world activities. [/li][li] He’s a terrible terrible person. (This isn’t relevant in any court of law, but I needed something to round out the list)[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
The first one isn’t relevant either. You don’t need to be a US citizen or legal resident to sue in US courts. You need to be one for US courts to haul you in as a defendant, generally.
I grew up reading Mad Magazine and know quite well who Bill Gaines is and what he accomplished. Still Flynt was a lowly smut dealer who took the fight to the Supreme Court and won against a very strongly politically connected self appointed Moral Majority leader , not a small insignificant feat. It’s possible to give credit to both without demeaning one or the other. The world is a better place thanks to both of them.
The game actually makes him look a little better than his actual appearance. (He wasn’t nicknamed “Pineapple-face” for nothing.)
Noriega has been in prison here in Panama since 2011. He’s 80 years old and reputedly in ill-health, having had a brain hemorrhage in 2012. I’m surprised he keeps up with video games.
I’m not demeaning Flynt, but a guy who takes up the fight long after the tide has turned (beginning in the 1950s) and then becomes more famous/redeemed because of a movie about it stands jussssst a tad lower on the podium than the guy who started the fight in a wholly hostile and unsupportive era when he could have been blacklisted and driven out of business. Flynt had supporters. Gaines had effectively none.
I admire Flynt for other things, mostly honesty about what his trade was, and the immortal comment about Guccione: “Poor Bob. He think’s he’s a journalist when he’s just a smut peddler like the rest of us.”
Sweet Jesus! I’d forgotten how homely Manuel Noriega was.
