06 Dec 2013 at 11:48 AM

Defamation, Lindsay Lohan, Technology, Video games

Lindsay Lohan Is Reportedly Asking Her Lawyers About Going After GTA5 For Non-Portrayal

By Techdirt

Lindsay Lohan, everyone’s favorite train-wreck, sure seems to come up in the world of intellectual property an awful lot. I’m not sure if this is because she has some over-inflated sense of entitlement, or if she’s just the devil-incarnate here to entertain me personally, but she’s gotten angry about being mocked in music, angry about a talking baby being named Lindsay (and being a “milkaholic”), and angry at the invention of the video camera for showing her stealing stuff that didn’t belong to her.

But now reports are that she’s looking to step up her game by going after Grand Theft Auto 5over their portrayal of her, except that (as with the E-Trade babies) it wasn’t a portrayal of her at all. Let’s take her reported claims to her lawyers in order:

– The video game cover shows a woman holding a cellphone who looks Lindsay-ish. There’s been debate over whether it looks more like Kate Upton or Shelby Welinder.

No, there’s no debate. Shelby Welinder was hired by Rockstar Games to serve as the game cover’s woman. Next.

– Part of the game features a mission where a Lindsay Lohan look-alike asks the player to take her home and escape the paparazzi.

If you’ve played the game, and I have, and you played the paparazzi missions and thought, “holy balls, they’re making fun of Lindsay Lohan!”, then you need severe psychiatric care. The character in question, Lacey Jonas, is an obvious composite character. The closest thing to referencing Lohan is that Lacey Jonas is famous and once starred in a “cheerleader competition” movie. Sounds like Lohan, except that all the other facts about the character don’t and the character doesn’t look like Lohan, which sort of kills the whole “they stole my likeness” claim. As does claiming you were also used for a completely different character.

Another part of the game shows another Lindsay-like character at a hotel resembling the Chateau Marmont hotel in West Hollywood — a place Lindsay not only frequents but once lived at — and the mission is to photograph her having sex on camera.

We’ve got more problems, in that this completely different character, Poppy Mitchell, is a recurring character in the series. While that wiki states that this character might be a parody of Lohan, it certainly isn’t much of a likeness beyond the character having been convicted of drunken driving.
And all of this is a bit beside the point. Even if each and every one of these characters were somehow a lifting or reference to Lindsay Lohan, it ought to be covered under the same blanket of parody that covers pretty much everything else in GTA5, given that the entire setting is a mocking look at Los Angeles. And I’m not sure what Lohan’s legal team is planning on doing with her request to look into all of this, but continuing with the claim that video game characters with the personality traits of fornicating in public, drinking and driving, and being washed up movie stars probably isn’t something she should be loudly pointing to as representing her.
Lindsay Lohan Is Reportedly Asking Her Lawyers About Going After GTA5 For Non-Portrayal
More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt:
Holy See (The Pope) Criticizes TPP And TAFTA/TTIP In WTO Speech
The IRS And SEC Want To Snoop Through Your Email Without A Warrant; Don’t Let Them
Lawyer For Cop Charged In Beating Death Of Homeless Man Claims Officer Didn’t Use ENOUGH Force

5 Comments

• 
• Print

Topics

Defamation, Grand Theft Auto, Lindsay Lohan, Technology, Video games