issues Two separate lawsuits have been filed against Take-Two related to their recreation of tattoos on NBA players recreated in the series. The first suit was filed by Solid Oak Sketches, filed in January 2016, after trying to seek a licensing agreement to use the registered copyrighted tattoos with Take-Two. LeBron James had submitted a statement supporting Take-Two, in that he asserted he has given the company the license use his image in their cases, which included his tattoos from Solid Oak Sketches, but this conclusion was thrown out by the judge. In March 2020, a federal District Court judge ruled that while the tattoos were copyrighted elements their use in the games were small enough to meet de minimis considerations, and that further, due to the nature of tattooing, an implicit license to use the tattoos was granted by the license granted for using the players' likeness. The judge summarily dismissed the case, as well as asserting that broadly, video games using licensed likenesses of players with their tattoos will be using the tattoo art within fair use. The defence of fair use was applicable to the defendants as the purpose of the tattoos in the game (to create a realistic depiction of the players) was satisfactorily transformative in comparison to their original purpose (as a form of self-expression through body art). A separate lawsuit was filed by tattoo artist James Hayden in December 2017; Hayden asserted that Take-Two's recreation of his tattoos designed for NBA players like LeBron James within NBA 2K16 and onward were copyright infringements. Take-Two sought a summary judgement to close the case, but by March 2019, the preceding judge gave partial summary to Take-Two, but left the main question of copyright infringement open. Hayden has failed to register the copyrights until after NBA 2K16 was released, leaving 2K17 and onward potentially liable to be determined in a court trial. One question raised by the judge was whether the NBA 2K series was an ongoing game with annual updates, or if each release was considered a substantial new work, meaning that any copyright violation would apply repeatedly to all three post-2016 games in the series or as a singular violation. References External links NBA 2K 2K Games franchises Esports games Take-Two Interactive franchises Video game franchises Video game franchises introduced in 1999 Sports video games by series