Why Rudy Giuliani wants Noriega to get his bloody hands off Activision's Call of Duty profits

Activision knows something about firepower. After former Panamanian military dictator Manuel Noriega sued Activision Blizzard for using his image without paying him royalties in 2012’s first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Activision rolled out former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as its lawyer to defend the lawsuit. Giuliani, a former U.S. Attorney and former First Amendment litigator, moved to dismiss Noriega’s lawsuit yesterday — which also indicated that Noriega was portrayed in a negative light — as absurd.

Activision Blizzard makes more than a billion dollars a year in revenues from Call of Duty games, which are played by about 40 million people. But the company is also fighting for the legal right, which it says is guaranteed by the First Amendment, to create fictionalized stories around real-life characters.