Ninth Circuit Fumbles the Ball in Videogame Likeness Cases

By Kent R. Raygor and Valerie E. Alter, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP   Creating a new rule that gives videogames much more limited protection than other expressive works, the Ninth Circuit has ruled that realistically depicting college athletes in videogames showing them doing what they became famous for doing—in this case, playing football—is not sufficiently transformative to avoid a state law right of publicity claim. In In re NCAA Student-Athlete Name & Likeness Licensing L