Published , by Brittany Vincent
Published , by Brittany Vincent
It looks like Activision is getting into even more hot water.
Professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer Booker T. Huffman (more commonly known to wrestling fans as Booker T) has filed a copyright infringement suit against Activision over the Call of Duty character Prophet. Booker claims that Prophet is too similar to his comic book creation "G.I. Bro." The character is based one of his old wrestling personas and debuted in print in 2015 with G.I. Bro and the Dragon of Death Preview and G.I. Bro and the Dragon of Death comic books. The persona was invented somewhere in the early 2000s. In comparison, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 released in 2018.
Prophet is a specialist character in Black Ops 4 and a cybernetically enhanced soldier whose body parts have been mostly replaced with mechanical replacements.
Since debuting the character, Booker T made appearances at various events dressed up like the character.
“When seen side-by-side there can be no question that this character was copied from G.I. Bro," said Micah Dortch, of the Dalls office of the Potts Law Firm, who is representing Booker T. "From the hair, body type and clothing, right down to facial expressions, the similarities are too profound to be an accident."
The visual similarities are quite striking, as Redditors have even commented on.
“They could have drawn him any way they wanted. But they chose to steal Booker T’s ‘G. I. Bro,’” reads the official copyright complaint.
“Booker T. has devoted a significant amount of time and money creating and organically growing his G.I. Bro character,” said Dortch. “That entrepreneurial investment should not be erased by such a blatant act of copyright infringement by a gaming juggernaut.”
What do you think? Do the characters look similar? You can read over the entirety of the complaint and let us know if you think the suit is indeed justified.