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Ryan Hart Gets $15K In Name/Likeness Lawsuit

Knight Shift

Knight Shift

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May 19, 2011
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Number of the day

$15,000

That’s how much lead plaintiffs will get of the $60 million settlement for college football and basketball players whose names and likenesses appeared in Electronic Arts video games from 2003 through 2014. Of the claims filed, 24,819 were determined to be valid, ESPN reported. The lead plaintiffs, former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon, former Rutgers quarterback Ryan Hart and former Nebraska and Arizona State quarterback Sam Keller, will get the most. The average player will get about $1,600, after lawyers take a 30 percent cut of the award, the network’s website said.
 
I wonder how many BS "billable hours" have been worked into the lawyers' share of the settlement. Also wonder if the name plaintiffs ever get side deals from the law firms involved.
 
GoodOl'Rutgers said:
I wonder how many BS "billable hours" have been worked into the lawyers' share of the settlement. Also wonder if the name plaintiffs ever get side deals from the law firms involved.
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In many class actions, the fees are based on contingency of winning, and billable hours are not taken into account. The plaintiffs' lawyers get a % of the recovery.
 
Never understood the basis of the suit, particularly since outside of Rutgers football, did anyone know who Ryan Hart was before the suit?
 
The lawyers get a minimum of $11,931,120.00. Not bad. I can understand RH taking the money, 15K minus what ever tax bracket he is in is a nice piece of change. At the same time having his image featured in a video game is awesome for him. I hope he bought and kept a copy of that game.
 
TreyA said:
Zero.
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So they did not track hours? They did not compare the hours "billed" by all firms who get a piece of that pie to figure out who gets what? The law firms involved will just split it down the middle? Was it 3 firms? More? Or did one firm "buy" the case from other firms? Of course there is a number associated with hours for this case for these firm(s).. just wondering what it was. Who covered the expenses for the lead plaintiffs to appear in court? There are all sorts of things that worth considering here if you are considering that Ryan Hart and 2 others got $15K while the lawyers got millions.
 
His wiki page should say "i killed a ton of fun for a huge group of people, who loved to play a game, and be recognized for being in the game, all for $15k"
 
RUtix4me said:
His wiki page should say "i killed a ton of fun for a huge group of people, who loved to play a game, and be recognized for being in the game, all for $15k"
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Why shouldn't anyone be paid if a company is making money based on that person's image in a video game?
Hart is just getting compensated for his image being used and the company that was profiting from his image is just paying him like they should have done before.

Those who love playing the game aren't getting it for free ,maybe they should demand the game makers supply the games without charge and see how that goes over.
 
MADHAT1 said:
Why shouldn't anyone be paid if a company is making money based on that person's image in a video game?
Hart is just getting compensated for his image being used and the company that was profiting from his image is just paying him like they should have done before.

Those who love playing the game aren't getting it for free ,maybe they should demand the game makers supply the games without charge and see how that goes over.
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What I don't get, and I am an intellectual property attorney (mostly do patents and trademarks), is how much is a college player's name and likeness worth if the player had little or no visibility as a player. I could see a top national player getting compensated. But perhaps the answer is Ryan Hart got what his name/likeness was worth. Not a slam on Ryan, but was he known outside of Rutgers before this lawsuit started?
 
Knight Shift said:
What I don't get, and I am an intellectual property attorney (mostly do patents and trademarks), is how much is a college player's name and likeness worth if the player had little or no visibility as a player. I could see a top national player getting compensated. But perhaps the answer is Ryan Hart got what his name/likeness was worth. Not a slam on Ryan, but was he known outside of Rutgers before this lawsuit started?
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Good question, but if his likeness was used, don't you feel he should be compensated for it.
Also he might have received more because he was one of the original filers of the lawsuit and
had his name out there as one of the "faces" of that lawsuit when it was being discussed in court and by the media.

That's just a guess by me and I imagine you or someone else posting in this thread would know if what I speculated is a possibility.
 
Knight Shift said:
What I don't get, and I am an intellectual property attorney (mostly do patents and trademarks), is how much is a college player's name and likeness worth if the player had little or no visibility as a player. I could see a top national player getting compensated. But perhaps the answer is Ryan Hart got what his name/likeness was worth. Not a slam on Ryan, but was he known outside of Rutgers before this lawsuit started?
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As an individual, probably little to zero value.

As an integral part of the team, probably a significant value.

Having grown up on these sports games, it's definitely more fun to play with real teams, licensed logos/uniforms, and actual rosters.

Is EA profiting off the unauthorized use of Ryan Hart's likeness? Probably (and the Court agrees).

The better question is: Is society better off or worse off thanks to this ruling?

I'd argue the latter.
 
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Just to be clear it was onl a "likeness" players had sliders that could be adjusted, names and numbers had to be either downloaded into the game or manually added. Its not not like their name was on the game. Fyi, you can still take the old game, rebuild the conferences and download rosters to match the players today if you like. A few conferences at the non P5 level have to be jury rigged, but otherwise you can continue to play.
 
GoodOl'Rutgers said:
So they did not track hours? They did not compare the hours "billed" by all firms who get a piece of that pie to figure out who gets what? The law firms involved will just split it down the middle? Was it 3 firms? More? Or did one firm "buy" the case from other firms? Of course there is a number associated with hours for this case for these firm(s).. just wondering what it was. Who covered the expenses for the lead plaintiffs to appear in court? There are all sorts of things that worth considering here if you are considering that Ryan Hart and 2 others got $15K while the lawyers got millions.
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I don't know if anyone tracked hours but it's irrelevant. The settlement was $x and they got 30% of x. How the lawyers divvy it up isn't anyone's business except their own.
Anyone who signed on to the class was made aware of the lawyer's % going into it.
 
Knight Shift said:
Never understood the basis of the suit, particularly since outside of Rutgers football, did anyone know who Ryan Hart was before the suit?
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter. Look at some of the responses to the loss of the beloved NCAA Football video game. That's based on the realism of using the actual college players, with all compensation going to the NCAA, not the players.
 
TreyA said:
I don't know if anyone tracked hours but it's irrelevant. The settlement was $x and they got 30% of x. How the lawyers divvy it up isn't anyone's business except their own.
Anyone who signed on to the class was made aware of the lawyer's % going into it.
Click to expand...

Not irrelevant?.. it was the point of my comment. I wondered how many hours were spent on it and how many of those hours were total BS.

It was relevant to my part of this conversation.

I also wonder if an athlete who feels he was embarrassed by the play of his in-game avatar, possibly due to inaccurate power numbers, has a case to say he was emotionally distressed and seek punitive damages akin to Erin Andrews emotional distress.

Now THAT is relevant to my comment too.

You know what else is relevant? These lawyers, no doubt, made representations to the athletes about what they would do to earn their 30%. Hours worked would be relevant as to whether they lived up to their promises.
 
You said "I wonder how many BS "billable hours" have been worked into the lawyers' share of the settlement."

The settlement amount and the amount of the lawyers compensation isn't, wasn't and won't be contingent upon any record of the number of hours they worked on the case. If the settlement took 37 minutes to be reached and the class signed on and agreed to pay their attorneys 30% of the settlement it wouldn't make any difference. I can't make this any more clear but I can give you an example. If you hire a real estate agent to sell your house and agree to pay him/her 6% of the sale price and they sell your house in 24 hours you owe the agent 6% even if he/she was sleeping for 23 of them.
 
I always like Ryan! After Leonard, pre-Rice, he was instrumental in getting to 2005 Insight bowl.
 
TreyA said:
You said "I wonder how many BS "billable hours" have been worked into the lawyers' share of the settlement."

The settlement amount and the amount of the lawyers compensation isn't, wasn't and won't be contingent upon any record of the number of hours they worked on the case. If the settlement took 37 minutes to be reached and the class signed on and agreed to pay their attorneys 30% of the settlement it wouldn't make any difference. I can't make this any more clear but I can give you an example. If you hire a real estate agent to sell your house and agree to pay him/her 6% of the sale price and they sell your house in 24 hours you owe the agent 6% even if he/she was sleeping for 23 of them.
Click to expand...

Again, you want to try to press the point that I don't understand what 30% means. So I explained to you the relevance of the question and still you stick to "teaching" me something.

Try it this way: I wonder what the settlement works out to in $$$ per tracked "billable" hour they worked on the thing.

Next time you read something here that you think has a one word answer... take a minute to reconsider that maybe there is another angle. It should be obvious that anyone on this board understands what a lawyers third share, or 30%, means.
 
Good 'ol: It's common practice* for firms to take a much higher contingency % as opposed to if the client paid by hourly fee.

The client has to pay a premium for the uncertainty of the outcome. If they had lost, Mike Hart is in good shape because he didn't have to outlay any monies. But the law firm would have been throwing resources at a money pit.

Even if the firm spent just 10 "honest" billable hours working the case, if their hourly fee is $400/hr, they just burned 4K.

*In my experience (limited to recovery/invoice collection/bankruptcy), 20-30% is standard.
 
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miketd1 said:
Good 'ol: It's common practice* for firms to take a much higher contingency % as opposed to if the client paid by hourly fee.

The client has to pay a premium for the uncertainty of the outcome. If they had lost, Mike Hart is in good shape because he didn't have to outlay any monies. But the law firm would have been throwing resources at a money pit.

Even if the firm spent just 10 "honest" billable hours working the case, if their hourly fee is $400/hr, they just burned 4K.

*In my experience (limited to recovery/invoice collection/bankruptcy), 20-30% is standard.
Click to expand...

I do "get it". But this case has been going on so long.. I just wonder about the math from the law firm's standpoint and the lead plaintiffs' standpoint and the entire class.. as well as EA. Almost 25,000 athletes.. $60M settlement. How much did the game make EA? How much of that could be attributable to using likenesses of real teams and athletes?

Using your math.. how much did the various law firms invest in hours compared to what EA was offering? At what point do the law firms say, lets take this settlement offer because we want to get paid compared to what they think might actually be fair to the athletes? BTW.. I think $15K is more than fair for the leads... on the other hand.. $1600 for the average athlete.. ehhh...

So.. how to value the likeness rights..

I found some figures...

EA pays the NFL $50M a year for players rights.

In 2013, EA sold 5 times more MADDEN NFL games than NCAA Football games.

So using that measure, maybe the NCAA rights are worth $10M a year. And with so many more players and teams, it might be much more costly to produce that game.

The lawsuit covered 2003 to 2014.. maybe the fee should have been $10M for 2014.. prolly less back in 2003. Lets call it half and say the average fee for those years should have been, conservatively, $6M a year. 12 years at $6M is $72M. Then add 30% to cover legal costs.. to make things right, the number should have been near $90M+.. then give a discount for "settling".. So call it $80M. That comes out to $16M more for the class.. $640 more per plaintiff for 25,000 plaintiffs. $2240 vs $1600.

Eh.. no big deal.
 
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GoodOl'Rutgers said:
I do "get it". But this case has been going on so long.. I just wonder about the math from the law firm's standpoint and the lead plaintiffs' standpoint and the entire class.. as well as EA. Almost 25,000 athletes.. $60M settlement. How much did the game make EA? How much of that could be attributable to using likenesses of real teams and athletes?

Using your math.. how much did the various law firms invest in hours compared to what EA was offering? At what point do the law firms say, lets take this settlement offer because we want to get paid compared to what they think might actually be fair to the athletes? BTW.. I think $15K is more than fair for the leads... on the other hand.. $1600 for the average athlete.. ehhh...

So.. how to value the likeness rights..

I found some figures...

EA pays the NFL $50M a year for players rights.

In 2013, EA sold 5 times more MADDEN NFL games than NCAA Football games.

So using that measure, maybe the NCAA rights are worth $10M a year. And with so many more players and teams, it might be much more costly to produce that game.

The lawsuit covered 2003 to 2014.. maybe the fee should have been $10M for 2014.. prolly less back in 2003. Lets call it half and say the average fee for those years should have been, conservatively, $6M a year. 12 years at $6M is $72M. Then add 30% to cover legal costs.. to make things right, the number should have been near $90M+.. then give a discount for "settling".. So call it $80M. That comes out to $16M more for the class.. $640 more per plaintiff for 25,000 plaintiffs. $2240 vs $1600.

Eh.. no big deal.
Click to expand...
You do raise a good point. I have seen patent contingency cases settle rather quickly because they dragged out very long and the attorneys just wanted to get paid. I have also seen the plaintiff turn around and sue their contingency attorney because they feel the attorneys settled on the cheap.
 
To make things simple, let's just pretend it's one law firm, 12mil settlement.
Further assume $400/hr billing.
That's 30,000 billed hours!

Even if we break it into 3 law firms (@400/hr), that's 10,000 billed hours each.

At 8 hour days -- with the top attorney working non-stop -- that's 1250 billed days.

Or about 3 years of work. Including working weekends. And holidays.

And I'm fairly certain that the top guy wasn't working this case non-stop for the last 3 years -- but he just got paid like he did, LOL!

My point: The attorney still had plenty of runway left in terms making the case worth his while.
 
GoodOl'Rutgers said:
Eh.. no big deal.
Click to expand...
I didn't even bother to cash the $0.02 check I received from the Verizon class action settlement. It literally cost Verizon nearly 10x more to mail the check to me.

It would have cost me more in gas just to plot a trip to the bank.
 
Its not because of his character in the game its because they used his actual photo in the game.
 
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