Lindsay Lohan Lost the GTA V Battle — For Now
Lindsay Lohan’s lawsuit against Take-Two interactive has been thrown out. She originally filed the lawsuit in 2014, claiming that her likeness was used without her permission in the creation of a Grand Theft Auto V character. Although she said it was an “unequivocal” reference to her, a judge threw the lawsuit out today.
Take-Two’s motion to dismiss the case was denied a few weeks back.
“Defendants have not been able to prove, at this juncture of the litigation, that the republication exception to the one year statute of limitations is not applicable to this case because the intended audiences were the same as those of the original publication and the images consistently remained the same,” said New York Supreme Court judge Joan Kennedy.
But today, the suit was thrown out thanks to First Amendment protections.
“As to Lohan’s claim that an avatar in the video game is she and that her image is used in various images, defendants also never referred to Lohan by name or used her actual name in the video game, never used Lohan herself as an actor for the video game, and never used a photograph of Lohan,” an appeals court ruling states.
“Even if we accept plaintiffs’ contentions that the video game depictions are close enough to be considered representations of the respective plaintiffs, plaintiffs’ claims should be dismissed because this video game does not fall under the statutory definitions of ‘advertising’ or ‘trade,'” it continued. But due to its “unique story, characters, dialogue, and environment, combined with the player’s ability to choose how to proceed in the game,” GTA V was deemed a work of fiction and satire.
Of course, Lohan can appeal the decision, so this doesn’t mean this is the last we’ll hear of this case.
Grand Theft Auto V is available for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC.