Heed the words of those who have a T'Challa avatar for they are wise....

AAh... SONY diving into another mess of a law case.

I'm sorry to the fans, but Sony is one terribly managed company.

ok some posts befor there is that “store“ spammer, just shows why it isn't always good that banned persons posts are visible now. now they make even money after the ban. and yes i'm sure that spam shit works, otherwise we wouldn't see those post for years now on every freaking internet site

i think this thread has run its course

It really comes down to 2 things:
Was there a restraint of trade clause in Lambert's contract, and had it expired?
Did Bridgestone's ad agency knowingly hire Lambert for a Wii promotion because he's a familiar gaming face?

The first is pretty easy to sort out. The second is very difficult to prove unless someone wrote it down at some point, and even then is it an actionable motive? I suspect not given Bridgestone isn't selling game consoles. Might be a slightly different story if it was a direct Wii add.

Silly and frivolous of Sony to sue, even if they end up being legally in the right.

Innocent until proven guilty only applies to the legal system and the final outcome.  You can't use that as an argument to not sue someone... that would accomplish absolutely nothing.  If I murdered someone, and everyone one knew it, I would still be "innocent until proven guilty" in the courts, but everyone would hate me and want me dead.  I'm only saying to do more research before throwing support behind one side or the other.

And yes, I know they're into selling tires... I fail to see why that would matter.  They're using Wiis as a promotional item, which means they're in a partnership with Nintendo, which also could also mean that Nintendo wanted Jerry Lambert, but that would only be hypothetical.  The Wiis being present is what makes this a violation of contract and a potential copywrite violation.  It doesn't matter what kind of merchandise Bridgestone sells.

so sick of this shit. just sue his ass and be done with it cause lets be honest, no one really gives a shit about this or kevin butler. what happened to the good discussions about games and sales? now this place has turned into fanboy wars chartz.

Okay, you need to calm down.

Also, a question for you. How do you prove that Bridgestone is clearly trying to cash-in on Jerry Lambert's influence on his fans? What evidence do you or does anyone have of such an accusation? Answer -> None.

And even if, is that a crime, something to be brought to the legal system? In what way? If you can answer that, you can redeem this post I quoted.

Actually the second point is pretty easy to prove as well.  Lambert has been in Bridgestone commercials long before the Wii promotion.  In fact here's one that was posted to YouTube by Bridgestone on Jan 27th, 2012 that has Lambert in it (in which they refer to him as a Bridgestone Engineer):

1. His contract had already expired before the commercial aired.
2. He'd been doing Bridgestone commercials for almost a year now.
3. His character basically has one line and it promotes tires, not the Wii console.
4. You can't trademark an actor's face.

This is a terribly tacky lawsuit by Sony and could have a big impact on any future work Lambert could get. Should they lose this lawsuit he'd instantly be out of the running for any work relating in any way to video games, and also other work which might later have a video game element.

Someone earlier in this thread said that Sony was making a bad name for themselves and someone replied something to the effect of "to who? only a small amount of people online who already hate them?". Couldn't you say the same thing about any supposed damages don't to Sony by this ad? Sure, all of us here know of Kevin Butler. We're more hardcore about gaming than most. And we already have consoles. But the everyday Joe watching TV? He doesn't know Kevin Butler. Seeing Jerry Lambert watching a Mario Kart race isn't going to make him not buy a PS3. What a stupid lawsuit by Sony.