Riot Games Loses Likeness Lawsuit For League of Legends Skin
Court finds that Riot Games did use footballer Edgar Davis' likeness for a character skin.
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Former football player Edgar Davids has won his lawsuit against Riot Games. Davids accused Riot Games of using his distinctive likeness for an in-game character skin for Lucian. Striker Lucian looks remarkably like Davids' on the field, sporting dreads and glasses/sunglasses.
Riot Games introduced the Strike Lucian skin into the game in June 2014, ahead of the 2014 World Cup. At the time, Riot QA Analyst Hether "Baconhawk" Jones tweeted that the skin was inspired directly by Davids. That tweet has since been deleted.
"For all you wondering, Striker Lucian was inspired by soccer pro Edgar Davids," said Jones in the deleted tweet.
Davids was told about the skin and its similarity by his son, according to an Instagram post he made that same month. He also seemingly thanked Riot Games for the skin on Twitter. Apparently, Davids eventually soured on the idea, as his lawyer wrote to Riot Games asking them to stop using the skin in December of 2015. Riot Games filed a defense in April 2016. Part of their defense, according to Dutch website Het Parool (translated via Eurogamer), was that League of Legends fans would see the skin as Lucian first, and not as Davids.
That brings us to this verdict. According to court documents, the Dutch court has ruled that Riot Games has to total up the money made on the Striker Lucian skin and a percentage of that revenue has to go to Davids. Given how much LoL skins can make and the amount of time the skins has been live, that could be a good bit of money for the retired footballer.