ESPN Win In Wrestling Footage Case Upheld On Appeal

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that ESPN won an appeal this week in the lawsuit filed against them by retired pro wrestler Steve "Wild Thing" Ray over footage of his matches being aired on ESPN Classic. This came just days after it broke (when the suit was moved to federal court) that Doug and Tommy Gilbert have sued both WWE and ESPN in a similar complaint.

Ray is best known for his run in Herb Abrams' UWF promotion in the early '90s, a startup that got TV in syndication and on the now defunct Sportschannel America cable network. The promotion never ran anything close to a regular schedule after 1991, but continued to hold occasional TV tapings. Eventually, a half hour show mixing footage from both the newer tapings and older shows showed up on ESPN 2 right after the network launched in 1993. Being that ESPN negotiates lifetime rebroadcast rights into their contracts whenever possible, the UWF shows (and eventually both AWA and GWF shows) started running on ESPN Classic several years ago. These ESPN Classic broadcasts are the ones Ray took issue with.

The original ruling that Ray was trying to appeal was explained using the following language:

[Ray's] wrestling performances were part of the copyrighted material, and his likenesses could not be detached from the copyrighted performances that were contained in the films. . . . [Ray] has not alleged that his name and likeness were used to promote or endorse any type of commercial product. Rather, [Ray] complains about ESPN airing wrestling performances that have been captured on video. Thus, [Ray's] complaints are based solely on ESPN airing video recordings depicting him in a "work of authorship," which is plainly encompassed by copyright law.

On appeal, Ray's side cited cases that dealt primarily with using someone's likeness to promote a product, something that the appellate court felt doesn't apply here. With WWE's past court victories over Ricky Steamboat and Doug Sommers serving as precedent that wrestling performances are the property of the copyright owner, the appellate court upheld the original decision.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

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