Ex-despot Noriega sues: How dare Call of Duty make me look like, like... Brutal former Central American dictator Manuel Noriega is mimicking a Hollywood starlet by launching legal proceedings against a computer games designer for using his likeness in a popular franchise. Noriega is suing Activision for "blatant misuse, unlawful exploitation and misappropriation for economic gain" of his image in …
"Noriega isn't a US citizen or even a resident," said Jas Purewal, an interactive entertainment lawyer. "This means that his legal claim becomes questionable, because it's unclear on what legal basis he can actually bring a case against Activision."
Seems that not being a us citizen is a black mark against you in us courts offically now.
Things like that can and have been done. One famous case is Roman Polanski suing in UK Vanity Fair (published in US), without ever leaving France. If Call Of Duty is sold in Germany or some other country with strong privacy laws, then it might well be possible for Noriega to sue them there and win.
Noriega? Are you kidding me? Polanski? If you break the law to the extent that these two did, it is my humble opinion that the perpetrators permanently lose all rights to sue over anything. Let alone sue anyone for "use of an image". If Noriega wants to show up in court to sue, expect to be sent on a "long plane ride" to nowhere.
They did not adequately pay for their crimes in the first place. Noriega is a murdering, drug smuggling kingpin who hooked millions of people worldwide and money laundered billions more and Polanski (may be talented) but is a known pederdast, convicted rapist, (thus sex offender) absconder and bail jumper.
Both of them lost any rights to their "images" when they became public figures due to their criminal activity. That makes them fair game because their mugshots are public property. Any images later derived can be used without recompense IMHO.
Not if the "image" was taken from a Mugshot! Don't care about your so called "laws", criminals have extremely basic rights, especially murderers. Here, there or anywhere.
Honestly it's idiots like your kind that coddle murders and rapists and take their side, that have screwed up this entire world. The ONLY rights that a convicted murderer or rapist should have are adequate food,water and a safe place to lie down and sleep while they are behind bars. It's not supposed to be a picnic, it's supposed to be a deterent.
I sincerely do not wish on you, to be a cause of anything that results in harm done to third parties; having your face subsequently used in an anti-tard 'insert whatever' campaign and your family: children and parents becoming a laughing stock of the world because you screwed up. Do not wish on others, what you would not be happy handling yourself. Courts deal with crime, that does not strip you of your fundamental, in some countries, constitutional civil rights. Neither does it allow random corporate entities to pass judgment and play with the outcome as they please.
What's Noriega's complaint? Did they forget something?
Anyway, it's been scientifically proven that there's probably more than one of him:
Church, K. W. (2000). Empirical estimates of adaptation: the chance of two Noriegas is closer to p/2 than p^2. Proceedings of the 18th conference on Computational Linguistics, pages 180 - 186.
In movie and game credits towards the end there's a work-of-fiction disclaimer, usually something along the lines of:
"This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events depicted in this motion picture are purely imaginary and no resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred."
or similar such wording. I have one on my own gallery to ensure people don't equate my pictures with anything in the real world. Do these disclaimers not carry any weight now? Do artists now have to make certain that their characters, places and events bear no resemblance whatsoever to anything or anyone in the real world? Because if this is passed, any form of creative expression other than the surreal or abstract is now dead, since it is not possible for any artist to vet their works against all 7+ billion people and the trillions of possible events in history to make sure there's no resemblance.
This shit needs to be stopped right now, otherwise we can forget any right of artistic expression.
To quote the article:
"Call of Duty: Black Ops II and its fictional storylines are aimed at providing fun and enjoyment. It is clear to game players that his [Noriega's] character and others that are based on real-life figures are fantasy.
"Including Gen. Petraeus and other real-life figures was strictly a creative decision made many months ago when the storyline was drafted."
I read this to mean that the character was deliberately based on him and so that would be a fraudulent claim.
I agree 100%. It frustrates me to see this BS. Same thing with Rockstar and the Lindsay Lohan ordeal. Trying to claim the game character is based off her when in reality it could be any Hollywoody blonde beach babe, There are THOUSANDS of them and claiming that it is based off you because you fit into that group is ridiculous and IMO an insult to yourself. Just with Mr. N, I wonder how many war mongers/dictators/murderers their has been in history who fit the bill? I'd wager quite a few. Whats worse is these people are actually getting cases over this. With the billions of people in this world its just common sense to know the same ideas/characters/plots etc. are going to pop up from time to time and just because this may resemble a person, that's not grounds for a claim of copying their "image".
I'm pretty sure I can find a character in many games that looks like me, acts like me, wears the same clothes as me and even has a similar personality, does that mean I have a claim cause they used my image or is this one left down to coincidence because I'm not famous/infamous??
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