In a lawsuit filed in Texas court, it is alleged that Activision and Infinity Ward committed copyright infringement when they reloaded the character Mara in 2019 Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare. The lawsuit was filed by writer and photographer Clayton Haugen, who claims that Mara infringes on a character he created, named ‘Cade Janus’. The actual model for both Mara and Cade Janus is the same person, Alex Zedra, an actress and Twitch streamer.
Haugen is a writer and photographer who hoped to make a feature film called the November Renaissance, and who successfully started a short film of the same name in 2017. Around this time, he hired actress Alex Zedra to portray ‘Cade Janus’, a character intended for the film, and took a series of photos of her in the role.
Haugen’s lawsuit, as reported by TorrentFreak, claims that the photos of Cade Janus were placed on ‘the wall of the studio’, while Infinity Ward created the character of Mara for Modern Warfare.
The lawsuit further alleges that Activision and Infinity hired Ward Zedra, as well as the same makeup artist who used Haugen, and instructed the makeup artist “to do the talent’s makeup exactly as for Cugen Janus photos of Haugen.” It also claims that Activision asked Zedra to borrow the same clothes and equipment used in the ‘Cade Janus’ photo shoot at Haugen himself.
A portion of the allegations of the infringement relate not only to the appearance of Mara in the game, but also photos taken with Zedra as part of the marketing of Modern Warfare in 2019. Haugen claims that these photos, seen below , “substantially consistent”:
To predict whether a lawsuit like this has legs seems like a silly game. If you hire an actress to play two characters, the characters look pretty much alike. If both are characters wearing combat gear, they will look more and more similar. However, if the Cade Janus photos were used specifically as a reference, perhaps? What do I know.
The complaint, which you can read in full here, argues that Haugen ‘is entitled to recover all monetary remedies from the infringement on the accused, including all their profits attributable to their offenses, in full. .. ‘. The lawsuit points out that at the end of 2019, Activision said the game had earned more than $ 1 billion (about £ 731 million) in revenue.
The court case sets aside that Haugen provided the story for the Bruce Willis film Hard Kill in 2020.
I reached out to Activision and Haugen for comment and would update the story should any party respond.