14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts is facing a lawsuit from a composer, Gerald Willis, who claims that the company has been using a track called “Win With the Rebels” without his permission, even if he is the exclusive holder of the rights for the track. As it happens, the track is also the fight song for the University of Nevada from Las Vegas.
It seems that the track is now present in ten games produced and published by Electronic Arts. If you are interested in hearing the song, you can pick and choose which game to load up, because you can find it in NCAA Basketball 2009, NCAA Football 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, NCAA March Madness 2006, 2007 and 2008, and NCAA Baseball 2006 and 2007.
The Las Vegas Review Journal, the newspaper that broke the story, says that, at the moment, Electronic Arts has not reacted to the lawsuit. Gerald Willis is asking the judges to award him $150,000 for each time the videogaming company has violated his rights.
The University of Nevada has been granted, by the composer, the right to use the song, but it does not, apparently, have the right to also award the use to a third party, like Electronic Arts. The case has been brought to the attention of the court on September 29, and no date has yet been set for the first court appearance of the parties involved.
It's interesting to see that a company like Electronic Arts, which is very interested in protecting its own rights, can so easily walk over the rights of another person over something so basic as the use of a song in videogames. The company should really try to clean up its act first, and then preach to the consumers about the way its videogames, like Spore, should be protected against piracy. Well, maybe this is some kind of poetic justice.