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Booker T. Huffman has filed a lawsuit against video game publisher Activision for allegedly stealing his “G.I Bro” character in the Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 video game.
Huffman filed a lawsuit today against Activision Publishing, Inc, Activision Blizzard, Inc., and Major League Gaming Corp.
The lawsuit alleges that Booker T’s character G.I Bro was copied by the Black Ops character David “Prophet” Wilkes. Booker T used the G.I Bro character in the 90s as a professional wrestler, and also created a comic book based on the character in 2015.
Legal documents filed state that Booker T teamed up with Travis Huffman(no relation to Booker), and created four cartoon versions of G.I Bro. These versions were used to create preview versions of the comic book titled “G.I Bro and the Dragon of Death”.
This is an action for copyright infringement. Booker T. created two comic books based on his character “G. I. Bro.”
G.I Bro is a special operations action hero. Defendants published a series of multiplayer, first person shooter games under the general title “Call of Duty.”
In 2018, Defendants released Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 , a “prequel” to the prior video game Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
In Call of Duty: Black Ops III , one of the “specialist”characters was David “Prophet” Wilkes, who had replaced 90% of his body with “cybernetics” to enhance his fighting ability.
For the “prequel,” Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Defendants chose to depict “Prophet” as he was before he remade himself. They could have drawn him any way they wanted. But they chose to steal Booker T.’s “G. I. Bro.”
Booker T. has registered G. I. Bro and the Dragon of Death with the United States Copyright Office. The Copyright Office has issued Certificate of Registration No. TX 8-668-892 for this work, dated January 8, 2019. G. I. Bro and the Dragon of Death is a derivative of G. I. Bro Artwork and G. I. Bro and the Dragon of Death Preview G. I. Bro and the Dragon of Death is based on the character G. I. Bro, first drawn in G. I. Bro Artwork, and includes one of the drawings from G. I. Bro Artwork ; to that extent it is also a derivative of G. I. Bro Artwork
In the pictures below, “G. I. Bro” is on the left, and “Prophet is on the right: There is no doubt that Defendants copied “G. I. Bro.”
The lawsuit states that Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 sold $500 Million worth of copies/downloads in the first three days following the release, and total sales to date exceed $1 Billion Dollars.
Booker T requested a jury trial, but did not disclose the amount of monetary relief he is seeking in the documents filed today.
You can read the lawsuit details below