Retired NFL players seek to join EA lawsuit is an Associated Press article on the tangle of litigation surrounding the use of former players' images in video games. This is noted on GamePolitics, but Kotaku points the way to the more interesting nugget at the end of the article, where they report that last week a federal judge in Los Angeles tossed out hall-of-fame running back Jim Brown's lawsuit against EA for using his image as a vintage player in Madden NFL, saying this is protected by the first amendment to the US Constitution. Word is:

U.S District Court Judge Florence Marie-Cooper ruled that video games are much like realistic paintings of athletes depicted in real-life situations, which are protected by the First Amendment as artistic expressions.

"The Madden NFL video games are expressive works, akin to an expressive painting that depicts celebrity athletes of past and present in a realistic sporting environment," Cooper wrote.