DN loses respect for Raymer

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I believe the lawsuit is a good thing and the players are right for doing it. The only thing they are trying to do is protect player's rights.

If you ever play in a WPT event the waiver you have to sign says that the WPT has a right to use your image however they want forever. This means that that they can put your face on any WPT product they currently have, or any product they make in the future.

Lets's say you wake up one day and you are Greg Raymer. You have a million fans and where ever you go women throw their underwear at you. You hire people (at great expense)to come out with a poker video game where you can play heads up against a video game version of yourself.

Two weeks before your video game comes out, you go to the store and on the shelf is a WPT video game that has your picture on the front and says you can play heads up against Greg Raymer. Is that fair to you? Just because you put up your own money to enter a tourney that the WPT happened to be filming?

Also while you are at the store, you see a WPT brand anal lube with your face on it, WPT brand sex toy (with your face on it), a WPT brand flag burning kit (with your face on it), and a WPT brand "How to cheat at poker" book with your face on the cover.

Is that fair?

Right now, the WPT could legally do all of those things because of that release. The players did ask the WPT to change the release, but the WPT told them to buzz off.

These 7 players are using their own money to try and get this changed. They are doing this to protect the rights of all current and future poker players, Daniel Negreanu included. Daniel does not seem to grasp this point.

The largest point that no one seems to be making is that if the WPT would just agree to rewrite the waiver and spell out exactly what the WPT could use the they player's image for (commericals and full season DVDs) then this whole issue would go away.

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I think your understanding of the law is very poor. There is no way that WPT can market a videogame of 'HU against Raymer' without Raymer's explicit permission (and profit sharing). The agreement they signed merely allowed WPT to use snippets of these guys during the tournament to advertise their program, much as they do now.

I don't know too much about this lawsuit, but the release they're asked to sign is actually pretty standard in many areas. And in no way does such a release give carte-blank permission for the other party to exploit your image in some unrelated product.

I'm no lawyer but I think I know American law well enough to know the example you posed as being just silly.