A four-year-old lawsuit that was filed against the famous NBA video game “NBA 2K” and it’s parent company Take-Two Interactive was dismissed after a New York City federal judge deemed that it is fair for the video game to reproduce original tattoos that players like LeBron James have.
The New York Post’s Lee Brown has the details on what went down in court with the lawsuit from Solid Oak Sketches, which named three of LeBron’s tattoos as their intellectual property that cannot be replicated in the video game.
Swain noted expert analysis found “only 0.000286% to 0.000431% of the NBA 2K game data is devoted to the Tattoos” which were mostly blurred and blocked by other players.
Her ruling sided with Take-Two, which always argued that the tattoos were fair use because they were no longer the artists’ designs but part of the hoops stars’ likenesses.
The Lakers star has also been a cover athlete for NBA 2K on more than one occasion, so his tattoos have been a part of the game and its style for quite some time, even while the lawsuit was processing.
