WWE Superstar Randy Orton's Tattoo Artist Sues Take-Two Over 'WWE' Games

Take-Two Interactive and World Wrestling Entertainment are headed to trial after a judge ruled that they copied the work of tattoo artist Catherine Alexander on a wrestler in three "WWE 2K" games.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the wrestler in question is multi-time WWE Champion Randy Orton, whose arms have been fully inked over the course of his time as a WWE performer since 2002. Among the tattoos that the third-generation wrestler has on his arms are tribal designs, skulls, a bible verse, and a dove and rose.

The designs are the work of Alexander, who sued Take-Two Interactive and WWE, arguing that they did not get her permission to reproduce her art in "WWE 2K16," "WWE 2K17" and "WWE 2K18" video games.

"[A]n issue of material fact exists as to whether Alexander suffered actual damages based on the value of the infringing use," Illinois federal judge Staci Yandle wrote over the weekend.

The lawsuit will proceed to trial and a jury will have to decide if copyright infringement occurred and how much money is owed to Alexander if that is indeed the case.

Every wrestler employed by WWE has licensed his name and likeness to the company, with Orton being no different. WWE then licensed it to Take-Two for the video games. This has been the case since WWE entered video games, hence wrestlers who leave the company often have to drop their WWE names when moving to other promotions.

Alexander's claim is that she should retain some rights to the tattoos once those are reproduced outside of Orton’s body. Orton, the son of former wrestler "Cowboy" Bob Orton and grandson of the late wrestler Bob Orton Sr., has prominently shown his tattoos throughout his lengthy WWE tenure.

"It is unclear whether Alexander and Orton discussed permissible forms of copying and distributing the tattoo works or whether any implied license included sublicensing rights such that Orton could give permission for others to copy Alexander’s tattoo works," the judge wrote.

In 2016, Take-Two dealt with a similar lawsuit over the tattoos of NBA players LeBron James, Kenyon Martin and Eric Bledsoe that appeared in their “NBA 2K” games. Take-Two won that case when a judge decided that James’ tattoos were too hard to make out during the games to be considered copies and that they were part of James’ and other players’ likenesses, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Despite that ruling that was evidently a Take-Two victory, however, this similar-looking issue is now headed for a jury trial and could result in a different outcome.

Prior to this new lawsuit, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick made headlines recently for defending the next-gen price hike of video games.

Take-Two Interactive's games under the 2K Sports banner include sports franchises like the "NBA 2K," "PGA Tour 2K" and "WWE 2K" series. Zelnick stated that video game prices have not increased for over a decade now and that maintaining the quality of AAA games costs more than what the current-gen games have been selling for.

In July, Take-Two had announced that "NBA 2K21" on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles will cost $70, a $10 increase from the $60 on the current-generation Xbox One and PlayStation 4.