EMI Group Plc, one of the world"s largest music companies, has filed a federal lawsuit against Electronic Arts Inc., the world"s largest video game publisher, over claims of copyright infringement in EA"s highly successful sports games. The suit, filed in federal court in New York on Wednesday, says a number of EA"s recent sports titles, like "Madden NFL 2004," "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004" and "MVP Baseball 2004" use songs that "embody copyrighted musical compositions that EMI owns, co-owns, administers or otherwise controls."
EA and other publishers have increasingly made music an important part of their games, debuting new songs by both up-and-coming and established artists in their games before the artist"s CD is released. Some have established divisions dedicated to producing and acquiring music for their titles. "This entire lawsuit is related to a single song that samples lyrics from another song," Electronic Arts said in a statement. "Our use of that song was licensed directly from the artist. We have agreements for every song used in our games."