In re NCAA Student-Athlete Name and Likeness Licensing Litigation (Keller v. Electronic Arts Inc.)
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
724 F. 3d 1268 (2013), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 42 (2014)
- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
Electronic Arts (EA) (defendant) created a college football video game. EA created avatars for the game that replicated actual college football players without using their names. To create a replica avatar for each player, EA used the real player’s actual attributes such as the player’s jersey number, skin tone, hair color, height, weight, and home state. Samuel Keller (plaintiff) was a college football player whose attributes EA used for an avatar in its video game. Keller filed a putative class-action suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that EA violated his right of publicity. EA asserted that its use was protected by the First Amendment. The district court disagreed and found that the First Amendment defense did not apply as a matter of law. EA appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Bybee, J.)
Dissent (Thomas, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 812,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
