by David Radd on Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Las Vegas Review-Journal is reporting that Gerald Willis is suing Electronic Arts. He contends that he has a copyright over the UNLV (University of Las Vegas) fight song Win With the Rebels, which featured in several recent versions of NCAA Basketball, Football and Baseball. Willis is seeking up to $150,000 for each copyright violation, which potentially could add up to $1.5 million.
"The U.S. copyright law allows for enforcement of copyright, and we trust the judge to determine what would be appropriate in a situation like this," said Ellen Winograd, Willis' attorney. "I think the UNLV band sounds great when they play it, and that's what it was written for. It was not written for commercial use."
UNLV holds a license to use the song and is not named in the suit. "After the dust settles on this, I am confident that UNLV will have no difficulty in using our fight song," said UNLV Vice President and General Counsel Richard Linstrom.
EA has not commented on the lawsuit.
Good for Willis. EA's legal team should've done their homework on this before they used the piece in their games. Ironic, that EA takes such a strong stance against piracy and puts such heavy DRM on their games, but turns around and essentially infringes on someone else's copyright.
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