In recent years, sports video games have become extremely realistic and increasingly popular, not only among teenagers, but among the athletes who actually use these games to help them train. Three such games in particular - Madden NFL 2004, MVP Baseball 2004, and Tiger Woods PGA 2004 - are all created by Electronic Arts (EA), the largest video game producer in the world. They are also the reason why EA was slapped with a copyright infringement lawsuit a few months ago by EMI Group, a leading music company whose artists include Norah Jones and Robbie Williams.
EMI claimed that the three games mentioned above, along with several other EA games, "use songs that 'embody copyrighted musical compositions that EMI owns, co-owns, administers or otherwise controls'."
This lawsuit was particular damaging to EA, as music has become such a huge and important part of the success of their video games. Players recognize the music and associate it with a certain game - it creates an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation during the game itself. EA has also used their video games as a platform to introduce the music of both new and well-known artists before their CD's come out for sale to the public.
EA claims that the entire basis of this lawsuit is unstable. EMI brought suit largely over a song featured in an EA video game that sampled lyrics from another song licensed to EMI. EA executives say that they licensed with that artist directly to get permission for use of the lyrics, and say that every song they use in their games is the product of a direct argeement with the artist themselves. In fact, the company established EA Trax last year, a division of EA created to "provide licensed music from major artists" for use in EA sports video games. This feature has contributed immensly to the success of EA's games.
EMI responded by acknowledging that EA did approach them last year to discuss licenses of songs to use in their sports video games, but then proceeded to release the games - with EMI's songs - without consent. After the release, EA continued their efforts to contract with EMI for licenses to these songs. It was then that EMI brought suit, "claiming its rights had been infringed and withdrawing any outstanding licensing offers."
In addition to damages, EMI is hoping to get a cut of the profits EA made off of these sports video games, estimated to be "tens of millions of dollars."
This isn't the first time EMI has been involved in a copyright infringement lawsuit. In June of 2003, they sued Bertelsmann AG, a German media company, over its $85 million investment in Napster. The basis of this suit was the allegations that Bertelsmann contributed to Napster's copyright infringement violations by helping to keep the program afloat via the investment money. Bertelsmann was also given a say in Napster managerial decisions, leading EMI executives to claim that "by investing both millions of dollars and management resources in Napster -- which was an illegal enterprise built on the unlawful distribution of copyrighted works -- Bertelsmann enabled and encouraged the wholesale theft of copyrighted music."
EMI received part of the $5.5 billion blow the music industry suffered as a result of illegal sales and piracy in 2002 alone. That same year, CD sales declined 8.8%. In an effort to make up for some of these losses, EMI announced this June that they will be releasing a program that enables cell-phone users to share MP3 files through their phones. After a certain period of time, the songs will be erased unless users want to purchase them. EMI is the first record lable to ever launch such a program, which has been termed "super-distribution," allowing and promoting legal file sharing.
Back to EA for a moment - EMI appears to have a valid claim and considering the amount of successful copyright infringement lawsuits lately involving the music industry, it seems probably that EA will be requried to pay damages and perhaps even some of their games' profits. While this could be a setback for EA, it will most likely be only temporary as they will be more careful in the future when licensing songs. And, EMI is seemingly finding new ways to generate profits in a time when copyright infringement in the music industry - whether purposeful or not - is more and more likely to occur.
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