Pele Sues Samsung
Legendary soccer player Pele has filed a US$3 billion lawsuit against Samsung Electronics, claiming that the South Korean company has infringed on his portrait rights.
Pele claimed that Samsung’s TV commercial used an image of a black male model resembling himself doing a scissor kick last fall. Pele’s accusation was that since the model looks like himself, the commercial gives the wrong impression that he himself appears in it.
In the past, star basketball player Michael Jordan had a similar case with a supermarket commercial and filed a lawsuit against the supermarket. Michael Jordan received a large sum in compensation for the case.
Samsung has actually attempted to hire Pele as a model for its ads, but the talks had failed.