Manuel Noriega has lost his case against the maker of Call of Duty. “Old Pineapple Face,” as his fictionalized character is known in the popular video game, had sought damages from Activision Blizzard (ATVI), citing legal protections that give people the right to control how their likeness is used in commercial works. The game maker argued for dismissal on so-called anti-Slapp (strategic lawsuit against public participation) measures that prohibit lawsuits intended to squelch the right to free speech, and on Monday the judge agreed.
Three years ago, Activision made a similar argument when the members of the band No Doubt sued over their inclusion in the game Band Hero. The company wasn’t able to convince a court to dismiss that case, because the version of the band that appeared in the game wasn’t sufficiently fictional. No Doubt had come into the company’s studios and posed for motion-capture photography, and the band sued after its members didn’t approve of the way their likenesses were used in Band Hero. The dispute was eventually settled out of court.
The Noriega who appears in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 isn’t such a literal interpretation. The designers worked from publicly available pictures of the former Panamanian dictator, who makes only a few cameos in the game. This was sufficiently transformative—and his role was sufficiently minor—that Noriega had no case, Judge William Fahey wrote in his ruling. If you’re a public figure, you’ll inevitably be subject to some parody in artistic works, and a video game company gets the same protections that the author of historical fiction receives.
The judge also picked up on the crux of the argument made by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who represented Activision in the case. This line of reasoning basically goes like this: Manuel Noriega is a really bad guy. Fahey’s decision is six pages long, and one entire page is dedicated to outlining the terrible and creepy highlights of Noriega’s career. Among them: He shipped weapons to the Sandinistas; he refused to abide by the results of a legitimate election in his home country; and the possessions he kept in his home included pictures of Hitler, an extensive pornography collection, and a “witches diary.”
“Noriega fails to provide any evidence of harm to his reputation,” writes Fahey. “Indeed, given the worldwide reporting of his actions in the 1980s and early 1990s, it is hard to imagine that any such evidence exists.”
