‘College Football 25’ Used A Legally Dubious Strategy To Avoid Paying For ‘Enter Sandman’

EA Sports

EA Sports went to great lengths to capture the essence of the gameday experience for College Football 25, but it did run into some issues when it came to traditions involving copyrighted music—including “Enter Sandman,” the song that serves as the backdrop to Virginia Tech’s entrance at home games.

Developers did come up with a pretty solid workaround, but you have to wonder if they’ll end up attracting the ire of Metallica based on the pretty uncanny similarities.

On Monday, people who paid an extra $30 to take advantage of the College Football 25 Early Access window got the chance to experience the highly-awaited game ahead of its official release on July 19th, and based on the majority of the reactions I’ve come across so far, it would appear the lengthy wait was more than worth it.

EA Sports worked closely with the 134 FBS schools that are featured in the game in the hopes of ensuring its digital portrayal of their uniforms, stadiums, and other unique details are as realistic as possible, but they were forced to make some concessions due to budgetary constraints.

In 2000, the Virginia Tech Hokies adopted what has become one of the most iconic entrances in college football by blasting “Enter Sandman” through the speakers at Lane Stadium as the team made its way out of the tunnel.

However, prior to the release of College Football 25, the developers said they’d declined to pay the licensing fee Metallica required for its inclusion (you also won’t hear “Jump Around” being played when Wisconsin plays at  Camp Randall Stadium for similar reasons).

They did manage to whip up a solid alternative to “Enter Sandman” in the end, but it might be a bit too similar.

Musical copyright law is a fairly complicated subject, and while I’m not a lawyer, I have kept tabs on a number of cases that have arisen over the years that revolve around the concept of “substantial similarity” (which was the crux of the lawsuit Marvin Gaye’s estates successfully filed against Robin Thicke over “Blurred Lines” and unsuccessfully filed against Ed Sheeran over “Thinking Out Loud”).

While chord progressions aren’t protected by copyright law, musicians can still attempt to convince a jury that their work has been stolen by someone who purposefully copied the central themes.

That’s an admittedly low-level summary of what is a pretty complex legal issue, but one of the criteria for a potential copyright violation involves the idea of “total concept and feel” and an “intrinsic test” that essentially asks the jury to consider if the average person would agree the similarities are impossible to ignore.

There’s zero doubt EA Sports ran the “Enter Sandman” clone past its legal team before including it in the game, but when you consider it appears to have a ton in common with the song it’s obviously replacing, it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any fallout.