Activision is facing copyright infringement brought by writer, photographer and videographer Clayton Haugen, who alleges that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is based on a character he created for Renaissance in November 2017. Was, a story he hoped to make into a feature film.
The lead character in the November Renaissance is Cade Janus, a “female vigilante and alien figure” caught in a corporate war directed by “a non-human intelligence” over control of the process of future human enrichment. It all sounds very much like Deus Ex-K, although Haugen said the selection for a woman in the lead role would “set it apart from a saturated market of action and science fiction films.”
The project was actually rooted in a successful Kickstarter campaign that went all the way back to the beginning of 2012, although the film’s description in the lawsuit available via TorrentFreak differs significantly from this initial concept:
This is a very common B-movie setup overall, but Haugen all moved on to the main character, hiring someone to portray him and creating a portfolio of decked character photos with various military props. – all of which he says he has registered with the US Copyright Office.
Haugen gave his views to various film studios, and also posted photos to his website, Instagram and a series of calendars. This is where Activision comes into the case: Haugen claims that the publisher copied the photos without his knowledge or permission and used them in a development document for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 to illustrate this That the game’s casting “must reflect the makeup” of the modern population. ”
It went a step further with the next game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The suit claims that Infinity Ward has hired the same model and makeup artist Hogan used for his Cad Janus photos, in the same way the model’s hair was also used, as a visual line Posted a photo of Cad Janus on a wall in the studio to use and to use for the character when she didn’t have “women’s tactical clothes,” Talent lends Hagen from the same clothes and his Cad Janus photograph Said to try to give. ”
“The result was an animated character and a set of photographs that were supposed to be, and copies of Hang Jan’s Cad Janus photographs,” the suit says. The “Mara” character is like a skilled female fighter whom Haugen describes as ‘Cade Janus’ in his November Renaissance works. The character of the game in ‘Mara’ is similar to the female fighter depicted in Hagen’s Cad Janus photographs. The game of The Defendants infringes Haugen’s copyright in his Cag Janus character and his Cad Janus photographs in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. ”
The images provided in the lawsuit indicate some obvious similarities between the characters, but whether they will be accepted as evidence that copyright infringement is inconclusive.
Such accusations seem more general of late. In January, indie studio NowWA claimed that Apex Legends’ character Fuse is based on the Hunter character from its upcoming game BulletVille. As we noted then, it is difficult to say for sure whether the similarities are merely coincidental, a matter of parallel thought, or indeed inappropriate. We saw something similar at the end of last year, when a woman claimed that the League of Legends character Seraphine was based on her, which Riot vehemently denied.
In this case, both Haagen and Activision were equally followed by a distinctly specific form, and arrived at very similar locations. If the activism actually kept Haugen’s photographs in his office, his footprint improves, though the artists use a lot of things as reference material, and base a character from the same model himself. Is not an extract.
The lawsuit, which names Activision Publishing, Activision Blizzard, Infinity Ward, and Activision Blizzard-owned Major League Gaming, “seeks to recover all monetary remedies from the defendants’ violations, including all of their violations. Profits are included, “plus legal fees and other costs. I’ve reached out to Activision and Haugen for a comment, and I’ll update if I get an answer.