The artists who designed Randy Orton’s tattoos engaged in a dispute between Take-Two Interactive when they used her designs in their video games without her permission.
Catherine Alexander alleged that Take-Two used her tattoo designs which are on Randy’s body without her permission. The lawsuit revolved around five ink tattoo designs which are all featured on the 14-time WWE champions body.
A jury in the US found that Catherine was entitled to compensation and awarded her $3750 in damages. The case was initially filed in 2018 and Catherine claimed five tattoos were her original designs which were: tribal tattoos, skulls, a bible verse, a dove and a rose.
The Case
Court documents state that Catherine created the 5 tattoos between 2003 and 200 and such art was clearly distinguished and recognised by Randy Orton’s fans and member of the public.
WWE did in fact contact Catherine and offer to pay her $450 to use a design in its goods which she refused. Following this offer, the Court was told Catherine did not grant any permission to WWE whatsoever to copy, duplicate or otherwise use or reproduce any of the plaintiff’s designs.
Take-Two took the argument that the tattoos were protected under fair use rules which allowed them to recreate Orton in the video games.
In this case, the Judge declared that authenticity was an essential factor in these types of video games to boost sales and profits. The Defendants argued that the evidence established that consumers do not purchase WWE 2K because of the tattoos. However, contrary evidence appeared to show that consumers did in fact purchase WWE 2K for its authenticity to the wrestlers’ appearance. The Defendants admitted that consumer response is a consideration to their development of WWE 2K and the design choices made. They also acknowledged that consumers expect there to be authenticity in the videogames and that WWE would have rejected Orton’s videogame character if it appeared without his tattoos or appeared with tattoos different to the ones on Orton’s body.
Courts Conclusion
The Court concluded that Catherine’s copyright of the tattoos had been infringed and Take-Two had no convincing defence for using the tattoos in their video game without her permission. Thus, the Court awarded $3750 in damages to the claimant.
The Court made mention of a previous case involving Take-Two who were unsuccessfully sued by tattoo artists in regard to a tattoo on Lebron James’s body. But in this case they explained the tattoos were de minimis and so did not infringe the artists copyright.
By Zohaib Tahir, an LLM student at Solent University
