BY TOM SOMACH

Seven top professional poker players are suing the World Poker Tour (WPT) over the WPT’s policy of requiring tour participants to relinquish all rights to their images.

Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, Joseph Hachem, Phil Gordon and Andrew Bloch filed the lawsuit against WPT Enterprises Inc. in Federal District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The poker-playing septet allege that the WPT has committed multiple violations of Federal anti-trust laws.

Specifically, the suit alleges that the WPT and the casinos that host WPT events illegally conspired to force poker players to sign non-negotiable releases that require those players to grant the WPT the right to use their names, likenesses, voices and images for no compensation, so that the WPT can promote its own products and services.

In addition, the suit alleges that the WPT and the casinos agreed to boycott and exclude from WPT events any poker player who does not sign the release, and also that the WPT and the casinos are conspiring to restrict the number of poker tournaments in competition with the WPT by agreeing that the casinos cannot sponsor any televised non-WPT events.

The poker players want the WPT to be banned from forcing poker players to sign releases granting the WPT the right to use those players’ intellectual property rights to promote WPT products and services, banned from using intellectual property rights obtained from past releases and banned from prohibiting casinos from sponsoring non-WPT poker tournaments.

As things stand now, the WPT can sell DVDs of its tournaments and the participants get nada from the DVD sales.

T-shirts showing Ferguson and Raymer playing cards? The WPT could sell them if it wanted–forever–and “Jesus” and the “Fossilman” wouldn’t get a dime.

And the same thing would apply to posters of Annie Duke, Joseph Hachem poker chips or even Howard Lederer toilet paper–anything sellable with the name, face or image of a WPT participant.

On the other hand, no one forces anyone to play in a WPT tournament, and there are competing poker tours one can join, so both sides of the lawsuit appear to have some merit.

The poker players are represented by the law firm of Dewey Ballantine LLP, which has offices in Los Angeles and 10 other cities.

According to the law firm’s website, the firm specializes in 40 practice areas, including anti-trust and trade regulation, arbitration, bankruptcy, mergers and acquisitions, insurance, intellectual property and taxes.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)