Activision Accused Of Stealing Warzone Operator Design

Photographer and writer, Clayton Haugen is suing Activision Blizzard for the likeness of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Operator Mara. Clayton Haugen claims that Mara is a rip-off of an original character of his. Activision allegedly copied an original character from defendant Clayton Haugen’s short story November Renaissance, the name of the character being Cade Janus.

Back in 2017, Haugen hired a Twitch streamer and model named Alex Zedra to be the Cade Janus likeness. The photoshoots of her in character were used to present his story to film studios. In 2019, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s season one, Mara was released as a DLC Operator in the game and the full body model for Mara was Alex Zedra. The Dallas office of the Potts Law Firm, Micah Dortch stated; “There should be no question that this was a planned, deliberate effort to duplicate the striking images created by Mr. Haugen. The evidence included in our filing clearly shows the similarities between the original images and the digitized character, as well as the actual use of Mr. Haugen’s images.”

It seems like odd timing for Haughen to choose to take legal action against the publisher as Modern Warfare has been out for well over a year and Activision Blizzard has moved on to supporting Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. This isn’t the first time the studio has found itself in court for copyright infringement as the Activision Blizzard was also taken to court by WWE icon Booker T. They believe that Call of Duty: Black Ops character was too similar to his GI Bro character.