Sports games, particularly from 2K Sports and EA Sports, strive for absolute realism, and part of that involves recreating characters with as much detail as the platforms they\u2019re built for will allow \u2013 like in NBA 2K16, for example.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just not realistic if you can\u2019t see every bead of sweat, every crinkle in a uniform and every inch of a player\u2019s tattoos, painstakingly recreated with as many pixels as a GPU can spare \u2013 at least, that seems to be the approach thus far.<\/p>\n
Now, 2K Sports\u2019 parent company, Take-Two, is in trouble for the realism they\u2019ve endeavoured to produce.<\/p>\n
Solid Oak Sketches, LLC, a tattoo studio known for doing a lot of tattoo work for big-deal sportsmen and women has filed a lawsuit (seen here<\/a>) against Take-Two for copyright infringement.<\/p>\n According to Solid Oak Sketches, recreating those tattoos is an infringement on their intellectual property, as it\u2019s tantamount to copying their artists\u2019 work, which we suppose it is.<\/p>\n Copyright law protects those things which are \u201coriginal works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.\u201d<\/p>\n All of the details are contained within the suit, but the gist of it is that Solid Oak Sketches, and their lawyers, argue that tattoos qualify for copyright protection because they fulfil the two statutory requirements necessary: originality and fixation. And technically they do.<\/p>\n The question many are asking, then, is if an artist can own the copyright to designs that appear on the flesh of another person \u2013 in this case, the players of NBA 2K16<\/em>.<\/p>\n Either way, it\u2019ll be decided in court. But if the words of one Judge Catherine D. Perry are anything to go by, Solid Oak Sketches will probably win: \u201cOf course tattoos can be copyrighted. I don\u2019t think there is any reasonable dispute about that . . . . [T]he tattoo itself and the design itself can be copyrighted, and I think it\u2019s entirely consistent with the copyright law.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s certainly interesting.<\/p>\n Classic PlayStation villains we miss most<\/a><\/p>\n Most interesting games of February 2016<\/a><\/p>\n Humble Monthly Bundle vs. PlayStation Plus vs. Games with Gold: a value comparison<\/a><\/p>\n
\nIn other news<\/strong><\/h3>\n