WWE's Randy Orton will be making a court appearance to serve as a witness in a trial where his tattoo artist is attempting to sue WWE  Take Two Interactive Software Inc 2K Games Inc 2K Sports Inc Visual Concepts Entertainment Yukes Co Ltd and Yukes LA Inc. The tattoo artist Catherine Alexander filed the lawsuit in 2018  but it was postponed multiple times mainly due to COVID 19. Alexander claims that WWE and 2K have infringed on her trademark by applying Ortons tattoos in WWE video games without permission.







Anderson has stated the tattoos she did on Orton between 2003 and 2008 are  easily recognized by his fans and members of the public so she then  submitted applications to register copyrights on each of the aforementioned works on March 15 2018. PWInsider explains Anderson had attempted to sort things directly with WWE but was only offered a $450 fee for the rights. She would turn that down and reportedly  told WWE that Plaintiff did not grant any permission to WWE to copy, duplicate or otherwise use or reproduce any of Plaintiff's designs.


The jury for the case will decide  whether Orton was automatically granted an implied license to have his tattoos recreated via WWEs licensed products if they would be considered copyright infringement if Orton did not have that license whether the tattoos would fall under  fair use brief excerpts of copyright material may under certain circumstances be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism news reporting teaching and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder whether the tattoos are de minmis  too trivial or minor to merit consideration legally and whether there would be damages due to Alexander. The hearing takes place on Monday September 26 at the U.S. District Court Southern District of Illinois.