Your Face Is a Ticket: The Legal Risks of Facial Recognition at Concerts and Stadiums

May 11, 2025May 11, 2025 / Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts / Leave a comment

By Jonah M. Haseley

Traditionally, people carried paper tickets to concerts, sports games, and other venues. By today’s standards, that seems quaint. But the rise of biometric data, particularly facial recognition technology, is allowing your face to become your ticket.

The Rise of Facial Recognition in Live Events

Venues are beginning to use facial recognition to expedite entry and augment security. The New York Mets introduced facial recognition at Citi Field, allowing fans to enter without traditional tickets. The NFL has deployed facial recognition to control access to restricted areas within stadiums.

Legal Challenges and Privacy Concerns

While facial recognition offers convenience, it also raises legal and privacy issues. In 2024, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Madison Square Garden, which used facial recognition to identify and ban individuals who were in litigation against the company. The court found that the practice did not violate existing privacy laws, despite calling it “objectionable” in its order dismissing the lawsuit.

Not all venues have followed this tech trend. In 2023, more than 100 artists and venues pledged to not use facial recognition at their events, citing concerns over civil liberties and privacy. This resistance exemplifies unease within the entertainment industry about biometric surveillance.

Biometric Privacy Laws: A Patchwork of Protections

The legal landscape for biometric data in the U.S. is fragmented. Only a few states—such as Illinois, Texas, and Washington—have enacted comprehensive biometric privacy laws that require informed consent for the collection and use of facial data. Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is perhaps the strongest of these, allowing private individuals to sue for violations.

However, most states offer no such protections, meaning that depending on where a venue is located, concertgoers may unknowingly surrender biometric data. This lack of consistency leaves fans vulnerable and venues with unclear obligations.

The Need for Transparency and Consent

A major issue with the use of facial recognition technology is the lack of transparency. Venues often fail to disclose that they are collecting biometric data. Venues sometimes obtain consent first, but often the consent is buried in complex terms and conditions.

One notable example occurred at a Taylor Swift concert, where facial recognition was used to scan attendees for known stalkers. Stalking is a real problem, and celebrities like Taylor Swift have legitimate security concerns. But fans were unaware that their images were being captured and analyzed, raising ethical and legal questions about covert surveillance at public events.

The Path Forward

As facial recognition becomes more common at live event venues, lawmakers should enact clear, nationwide rules that protect individuals’ privacy rights and regulate how biometric data is collected, stored, and used. Venues must also take responsibility by being transparent about their practices, obtaining clear, informed consent, and securing the data they collect. People deserve to have their data protected and their privacy respected. By implementing stronger legal protections and ethical standards, we can ensure that attending a concert remains about watching the performance—not about being watched.

#FacialRecognition #PrivacyRights #ConcertTech #BiometricData

Breaking the Game: The Legal Fallout of the EA-FIFA Divorce

May 11, 2025May 7, 2025 / Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts / Leave a comment

By: Santi Pedrazas Arenas

I. Introduction

For nearly three decades, the FIFA video game series stood as both a cultural phenomenon and a revenue juggernaut, melding the world’s most popular sport with cutting‑edge digital technology. Yet on May 10^th, 2022, Electronic Arts (EA) and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) announced that their long‑running licensing agreement would not be renewed at the end of that year. This departure was far more than a simple rebranding exercise; it reflected a complex tug‑of‑war over intellectual property (“IP”) rights, brand equity, and digital distribution in an age when gaming companies increasingly rival traditional sports institutions in global influence.

Beyond the headlines, the EA‑FIFA breakup offers a rich case study in contract negotiations, trademark strategy, and the evolving contours of digital IP. By examining the key legal fault lines, from licensing fees and player likenesses to trademark dilution and collective bargaining with player unions, we can trace how tech giants assert greater autonomy over digital assets once held by legacy organizations.

II. Background: A $20 Billion Partnership

EA first partnered with FIFA in 1993, releasing FIFA International Soccer for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Over the ensuing years, the franchise evolved into EA’s flagship title, particularly following the introduction of FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) in 2009, a game mode that grew to dominate the company’s monetization strategy. By the time of the split announcement, “FIFA 23” accounted for a significant amount of the financial success for EA.

Under the terms of the licensing deal, FIFA granted EA exclusive rights to use its trademark, official competition names (including the World Cup), and related branding elements. In return, reports suggested that annual licensing fees ran into the billions of dollars per World Cup cycle. Meanwhile, EA negotiated separate agreements with player associations (FIFPro), major leagues (Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga), and individual clubs to secure likeness rights, kits, and stadiums — a sprawling web of sublicenses that gave the series’ authenticity.

This dual‑track licensing approach meant that while FIFA owned the name, EA controlled the experience. As digital distribution overtook physical sales, EA began to question the value of the FIFA trademark itself. The core gameplay, player likenesses, leagues, and clubs that fans cared about were secured through separate agreements and remained intact regardless of the FIFA name. In this context, the branding offered by FIFA was increasingly seen as symbolic rather than essential. For EA, long-term value lay in recurring in‑game revenues from microtransactions and content updates, not in legacy naming rights. This shift in perspective helped set the stage for license renegotiations in 2022.

III. The Licensing Dispute: FIFA vs. EA

At the heart of the breakup lay a disagreement over the value and scope of FIFA’s trademark. Reports indicate that FIFA sought over $1 billion for a renewed naming‑rights deal covering the next World Cup cycle, a figure EA deemed unjustifiable in light of its digital‑first business model. EA countered with a proposal that would have granted it broader rights to digital and streaming content, global mobile distribution, and extended sublicensing flexibility, terms FIFA ultimately refused to grant.

When negotiations collapsed in May 2022, both parties publicly assured fans that the split would be “amicable,” but behind the scenes, lawyers scrambled to untangle overlapping rights before the December 2022 deadline.

IV. Who Owns the Game? A Legal Anatomy of the Split

A. Trademark Law

Under U.S. and international trademark principles, a mark grants its owner the exclusive right to use a brand identifier in commerce. FIFA’s insistence on preserving exclusive control over “FIFA” threatened to limit EA’s ability to leverage the brand in new digital arenas. In contrast, EA holds registered trademarks for “EA Sports,” “FUT,” and related subbrands. The split has tested the consumer confusion doctrines. This raises important questions about whether or not fans can distinguish EA Sports FC from FIFA games, or whether EA’s longstanding association would dilute FIFA’s goodwill.

B. Collective Licensing & Player Likenesses

Crucially, EA’s separate agreements with FIFPro conferred rights to more than 17,000 player likenesses, independent of the FIFA deal. This collective bargaining arrangement allowed EA to continue featuring top athletes even as the FIFA name disappeared. From a contract‑law perspective, these parallel licenses insulated EA against the fallout of a single counterparty walkout, showcasing a best practice in risk diversification for IP‑heavy ventures.

VI. Conclusion

The end of the EA‑FIFA partnership marks more than the sunset of an era; it signals a tectonic shift in how IP, branding, and digital distribution intersect in sports entertainment. By dissecting the legal anatomy of the split, from the high‑stakes trademark negotiations and contract‑law intricacies, we glimpse the future battlegrounds where tech companies and traditional institutions will fight for control. As virtual sports become ever more immersive and monetized, law will play a pivotal role in defining the balance of power. Can governing bodies adapt to digital‑first licensing models? And will new stars emerge amid the legal skirmishes over fan engagement and metaverse extensions? For lawyers, technologists, and gamers alike, the story of EA Sports FC versus FIFA is just the opening whistle in a game whose final outcome remains to be determined.

Hargis v. Pacifica: The Case with Potential to Shape AI’s Legal Future

May 10, 2025May 4, 2025 / Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts / Leave a comment

By: Miranda Glisson

The internet has made it incredibly easy for people to find, copy, and paste other’s photography. But what are the legal protections available for photographers? How likely is it that artists, well-known or novice, can find every unlawful use of their copyrighted work? In a groundbreaking case, photographer Scott Hargis made history with a record-setting damages award for the unauthorized use of his photographs.

Introduction

Hargis is an architecture and interiors photographer, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, with worldwide clientele. Hargis was hired by Atria Management Company to take photos of several senior living facilities. Another company, Pacifica Senior Living Management, then acquired the senior living properties from Atria and used 42 of Hargis’s photos depicting these properties on their website, without obtaining Hargis’ permission. Hargis’ agent informed Pacifica that those photo licenses were not transferable from Atria to Pacifica, and representatives of Hargis requested Pacifica to take Hargis’ images off of their website. However, Pacifica refused on multiple occasions, and Hargis brought suit against Pacifica for Copyright Infringement.

Willful Copyright Infringement

Statutory damages are damages awarded by a judge or jury in a copyright infringement suit to a copyright owner. The amount of statutory damages awarded to a copyright owner when copyright infringement is found depends on whether the infringement is considered innocent or willful. A court may find innocent infringement when the defendant, or infringer, can demonstrate they were “not aware and had no reason to believe that the activity constituted an infringement.” However, innocent infringement cannot be found when there was a proper copyright notice on the work, as found in Hargis v. Pacific Senior Living Management.

Willful infringement does not require that the defendant have actual knowledge of their infringing actions. Rather, it is only required that there is a showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the infringer “acted with reckless disregard for, or willful blindness to the copyright holder’s rights.” If copyright infringement is found and determined to be innocent infringement, the statutory maximum is $30,000 per copyrighted work infringed upon. The statutory maximum for willful infringement is much larger at $150,000 per copyrighted work. However, even if willful infringement is found, the fact-finders must determine how much statutory damages should be awarded to the Plaintiff between the minimum of $750 (also the minimum for innocent infringement) and the maximum of $150,000 for willful infringement.

Hargis v. Pacific Senior Living Management: $6.3 Million Jury Verdict

Legitimate copyright infringement cases will often end in settlement instead of going to trial. However, in the case of Hargis v. Pacific Senior Living Management, Pacifica refused to settle leading to the largest jury verdicts for copyright infringement of photographs. The United States District Court, Central District of California jury found that Pacifica infringed on all 42 of Hargis’ photographs. the evidence supported a finding of willful infringement due to Pacifica ignoring Hargis’ request for payment and refusing to take the photos off the website for a year and half after the suit was filed. They found each infringement to be willful and asserted the maximum statutory damage amount of $150,00 for each of the 42 photographs, leading to a $6.3 million jury verdict.

Protection of Photographers Works in the Growing World of AI

In 2019, Copytrack, a global company that enforces image rights, investigated how many photographer’s images are stolen on the internet. They estimated that more than 2.5 billion images are stolen daily. Hargis v. Pacific Senior Living Management demonstrates how seriously U.S. courts view the infringement of photographs and the financial impact unlawful uses of copyrighted works can result in. Currently, with the ever growing world of AI, more lawsuits are popping up, with claims that AI companies are infringing on their copyrights by using the owner’s images to train AI Models.

With the favorable results for Hargis and his images, willful use of copyrighted images has the potential to cost AI companies millions, maybe billions, as AI models need to see between 200-600 images of a particular concept before it can replicate it. Further, training a model from scratch, or fine tuning one, can still require thousands of data points. With heaps of data points and works used to train AI models, developers of these models could be on the hook for massive fines depending on how willful the use of the copyrighted work is found. How courts and companies will approach this problem in the future is unknown, however it has the potential to cause ripple effects in AI development.

Conclusion

Hargis v. Pacific Senior Living Management sets a powerful precedent for protecting photographers’ right in the growing digital era and the severe financial consequences of infringement, especially willful infringement. Photographs, and other copyrighted works, are exposed to misuse and as courts began to evaluate AI’s use of copyrighted material, the lessons from Hargis v. Pacific Senior Living Management may play an instrumental role in decision making and serve as a warning to infringers.

Collusion by Algorithm?: Antitrust Allegations and the Future of Rental Pricing

May 9, 2025 / Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts / Leave a comment

By: Hannah Gracedel

It’s that time of year again. You come home from a long day of work to a little note taped to your apartment door. You open it, and it’s a lease renewal notice. Surprise! Your rent is going up. Again. You start browsing online for alternatives, but everything is too expensive. You wonder if this is just inflation or if something else is behind these relentless rent prices. A few internet search results later, you stumble upon the name of a company you’ve never heard of, RealPage, which is currently being accused of price fixing in the rental market.

Who is RealPage?

RealPage is a property management software company headquartered in Richardson, Texas. Its software helps property managers and owners with marketing, applicant screening, utility management, resident services, lead generation, and, most importantly, recommendations for pricing of rental units. RealPage has been the nation’s dominant provider of such rent-setting software since 2017.

How the rent-setting software works

RealPage’s pricing tool pulls data from its vast network of clients to recommend rent prices for individual units. The software factors in data such as supply and demand, occupancy rates, competitor pricing, etc. The software updates in real-time, providing property managers with insight they would have been unable to obtain on their own through public information.

What is Price Fixing?

In a healthy, competitive market, prices are generally determined by supply and demand, where sellers respond to consumers’ willingness to buy goods and services. Price fixing, however, sidesteps this process. Price fixing occurs when competitors agree with each other, either formally or informally, to raise, lower, stabilize, or maintain prices at a certain level rather than letting the market set them naturally. This type of coordination among competitors eliminates the incentive to undercut rivals by offering a better deal. The effect of this is artificially higher prices for consumers.

Normally, when we think of a price-fixing cartel, we think of shady business executives meeting in a back room, discussing their private business information, and agreeing on prices moving forward. One infamous example is the Lysine price-fixing cartel caught on camera, which was the basis for the bestselling nonfiction thriller book Informant: A True Story, and the movie adaptation Informant!, starring Matt Damon.

However, RealPage’s situation is different and, admittedly, makes for a much less thrilling movie adaptation. What’s happening here is that the price-fixing agreement is happening virtually and among competitors who have never even spoken with each other before. By feeding private data into RealPage’s software and accepting its rent recommendations, landlords and property managers may be coordinating prices through a shared algorithm, effectively using it as an intermediary for collusion. While the method of alleged price fixing is novel, the impact on the market is just the same: higher prices and fewer meaningful options for consumers. As Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco put it, “[t]raining a machine to break the law is still breaking the law.”

Why is this such a big deal?

Currently, RealPage serves over 24 million units worldwide. This means that rent prices across millions of units are being shaped not just by local market forces, but by a centralized algorithm feeding on private data submitted from property owners and managers who are technically supposed to be competitors. When large numbers of sellers use the same system to set rents, it raises serious concerns that competition is being replaced by coordination.

Take Seattle, for example. In Belltown, a Seattle neighborhood located between the Space Needle and Pike Place Market, 70% of the apartments were overseen by just 10 property managers, and every single one of them uses pricing software sold by RealPage. To the unsuspecting renter, this might look like a competitive market with multiple landlords, but in reality, it’s one algorithm making the rent decisions for the thousands of the units in a neighborhood.

Pending claims against RealPage

The U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of states, including North Carolina, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, and Tennessee, have filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against RealPage. The DOJ alleges that RealPage’s pricing algorithm enabled landlords to share confidential information and align their rents, thereby violating antitrust laws.

The Washington State Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit in April 2025 against RealPage and nine major landlords, alleging violations of the state’s Consumer Protection Act. The lawsuit claims that RealPage’s software facilitated a conspiracy among landlords to inflate rental prices, affecting approximately 800,000 leases in Washington between 2017 and 2024.

If these claims succeed, the implications could be massive, not just for RealPage but for the future of algorithmic pricing across industries.

#rent #algorithm #wjlta

Fighting for Reclamation: Taking Back Looted Art

May 6, 2025 / Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts / Leave a comment

By: Alyssa Blackstone

The Supreme Court revived a case on March 10, 2025, involving Nazi-looted artwork due to the recent enactment of a new California law. What are the implications of this law, and how much power does it indicate states have in repatriation of lost works of art?

In September of 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed bill 2867, allowing any California resident that has had art taken or stolen, including those taken under political persecution, to bring an action for recovery of the piece or damages. Newsom signed this law in response to a 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. concerning the painting “Rue Saint-Honore in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain” by the impressionist painter Camille Pissarro. This painting was owned by Lilly Cassirer Neubauer, a German citizen who was forced to sell the painting to the Nazis in 1939 to afford to flee to the UK. The 9^th circuit held the painting was lawfully owned by a Spanish museum, and does not need to be given to the American descendants of Neubauer. Newsom believed the bill would assist the families of Holocaust survivors in reclaiming goods that were stolen and looted from them by the Nazis. This bill helps families reclaim the art by giving plaintiffs standing to bring a case to court and potentially return ownership of the lost art to the rightful owners.

There are many cases dealing with art restitution, especially involving art looted by, taken by, or sold to the Nazis during World War II. The Nazis looted an immense amount of art pieces, which many countries, including the United States (U.S.), have been trying to return to their original countries or descendants of the original owners. In fact, many of these art pieces are still missing today. Since the late 1990’s, there has been a push to reclaim looted artwork for descendants of holocaust survivors in the U.S. shown by things such as the the Washington Principles (a conference where non-binding principles were given in regards to how to treat Nazi looted artwork). However, since WWII and even into the 21^st century, as with the Pissarro piece, there are challenges getting art back to the original owner’s.

Positively, the fruits of the California bill became apparent earlier this year. The Supreme Court revived the Pissarro case on March 10^th. They vacated the 9^th circuit judgement, and remanded the case to the 9^th circuit. This was done specifically in light of Bill 2867. This decision to remand bodes well for the family of Neubauer, as the new California law would make it much easier for them to claim ownership of the painting. We are still awaiting the 9^th Circuit’s decision on this remanded case.

This law demonstrates how much power States can have in the restitution of art. As seen here, a California bill could grant the piece back to the family, when it has repeatedly been said by courts to be owned by the Spanish museum. Continually, any acts passed by Congress have also been helpful in returning looted artwork outside of California.

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