Jury Decides Activision Innocent Over Call of Duty Copyright Lawsuit

Keeping things unique and original can be hard. Protecting your original creation from theft can be even harder, especially when it might just be coincidence. This seems to be the case for Booker T. Huffman, whose copyright infringement lawsuit against Activision was rejected.

Not that long ago, WWE star Booker T. Huffman issued a lawsuit against video game corporation Activision. They claimed that the company plagiarized the design of one of his characters for a recent Call of Duty character.

Huffman has a character called G.I. Bro, a black military expert with a mean demeanor. They are often seen with dread coming out of a durag. Huffman claims that the Call of Duty character Prophet, which shares the same basic features, is a copy of his character.

But its not just his hair and skin that Huffman claims is a copy, its his personality. He claimed that G.I. Bros facial expression and attitude were unique. When the lawsuit was filed, Huffmans lawyer claimed the similarities were too profound to be an accident.

Activision, however, claimed that the two characters, while similar, are not an infringement. They stated that Huffman did not have sufficient evidence that the character was copied. They claim that the imagery was not copyrightable, since the original image was modeled after Dwayne the Rock Johnson from the neck down. As for the personality, they remarked that Huffman does not own the idea of an angry man with a scowling look.

After some consideration, a jury made a decision on the lawsuit. Provided by GI.Biz, the jury decided that Activision was not infringing on the design of G.I. Bro.

Major corporations infringing on smaller creators IPs is an occasional problem. And its always an unfortunate one, since the smaller creators normally don't have the legal power to fight against it. But we dont think this is it.

In our not-legally-relevent opinions, We agree with the jury. This looks more like a Hollywood man with a big head. The design of G.I. Bro is terribly generic, and you can probably find a good 20 folks that look just like that in New York alone, if not more. His name is even a reference to G.I. Joe. And like Activision said: hes just an angry, scowling man, and even more common style. So when your only argument toward infringement is they look the same, then its a pretty weak argument.