Carrying a Good Joke Too Far?

By Kadence Otto, Ph. D., Associate Professor, Western Carolina University   On July 21, 2009, former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon filed a class action lawsuit against the NCAA alleging antitrust violations in relation to ownership rights of former athletes’ likenesses and images (O’Bannon, Jr. v. NCAA, C 09-03329, N.D. Cal.). The O'Bannon case was combined with another class action lawsuit, the Keller case (Keller v. Electronic Arts, Inc., C 09-01967, N.D. Cal., May 5, 2009). I