A multi-million dollar lawsuit has been concluded between Take-Two Software and Solid Oak Sketches regarding the use of tattoos on NBA 2K athletes. Solid Oak Sketches is responsible for tattooing NBA stars, Lebron James, Kenyon Martin and Eric Bledsoe.
The lawsuit was ruled in favor of Take-Two Software, meaning NBA 2K will not have to remove tattoos or be punished for the depiction. Solid Oak Sketches filed the lawsuit, claiming that it owned the rights to the art tattooed on the three players. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2016 and was finally concluded by citing the number of players in question, the size of the tattoos, and their visibility. According to the court, three out of 400 available players have the tattoos and because of the fast-paced gameplay, those tattoos are not observed often and are not used in any marketing.
Lebron James is featured in many marketing campaigns, including having the most exposure as a 2K cover athlete. The lawsuit seems to come down to the amount of time the tattoos can be seen and preventing all tattoos from becoming copyrighted because many players have visible tattoos.
As the NBA season is halted because of COVID-19, NBA 2K is being played as an alternative to the NBA season and continues to be the most popular NBA simulation. Coming off this lawsuit, Take-Two will not have to worry about the depiction of tattoos in future NBA 2k games.
NBA 2K20 is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: TechRaptor, Wikimedia Commons
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