Archive for August, 2008
Posted by Dan on
August 27, 2008
Just two days until the opening of PAX 2008, and just four days until the GamesLaw.net panel on “Legal Issues in Contemporary Gaming”. If you haven’t made your schedule, make sure to schedule time for us on Sunday, at 3-4pm in the Wolfman Theater. Our panelists will be including the chair of the ABA Special Committee on Computer Gaming and Virtual Worlds, a board member of the IGDA and a notable gaming attorney, and of course, yours truly representing GamesLaw. (Panelist Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the IGDA got caught in a scheduling conflict with his own panel, running from 2:30 to 3:30, and will be joining us late).
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Posted by Dan on
August 27, 2008
Can a game publisher sue people for attempted copyright infringement? If the RIAA is any indication, they might end up being able to.
CNet news, which seems to lately have an eye on games law cases, is reporting that a federal judge has ordered sanctions against the defendant in a copyright infringement case for willful destruction of evidence, essentially guaranteeing he’ll have to pay damages to the RIAA. The defendant was sued after apparently accidentally uploading .mp3 files via KaZaa, that he claimed were intended to be transfered onto his personal music players. Though the case in question involved the music industry, it has grave implications for the games industry as well. The decision sounds a death knell for what was on the road to becoming a significant victory for fair-use advocates and pirates alike, something that would have been a powerful blow to game publishers and distributors. More after the jump.
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Posted by Dan on
August 24, 2008
Not just any MMO either, but huge goliath Chinese MMO Legend of Mir. A player who was banned (for unstated reasons) sued producer Shanda for 11,000 RMB ($1600 USD) under an emotional distress theory. And just 2 weeks ago, a World of Warcraft player sued The9 to unban his account, who are WoW’s distributor in China, and won, receiving his account, characters, and items back.
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Posted by Dan on
August 22, 2008
Gamesindustry.biz has a followup editorial on the Atari/Codemasters + Davenport Lyons mass litigation. It’s probably nothing new if you’ve been following our coverage, as we broke the report that Davenport Lyons attorneys (or more likely, barristers since they’re a UK organization), had been disbarred in numerous countries in Europe for misconduct in attempting to extort settlements. Our editorial opinion follows after the jump.
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Posted by Dan on
August 21, 2008
Davenport Lyons, who we mentioned in our last post, recently won a 16,000 pound verdict against a woman for uploading a pinball game to P2P file sharing progams.
According to a partner at the firm says “Illegal file-sharing is a very serious issue resulting in millions of pounds of losses to copyright owners. As downloading speeds and Internet penetration increase, this continues to be a worldwide problem across the media industry which increasingly relies on digital revenues.”
“The damages and costs ordered by the Court are significant and should act as a deterrent. This shows that taking direct steps against infringers is an important and effective weapon in the battle against online piracy.”
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Posted by Dan on
August 21, 2008
GamesIndustry.biz is reporting from Leipzig that five gaming companies, Atari, Codemasters, Reality Pump, Techland and Topware Interactive, have appointed UK law firm Davenport Lyons to make a demand of 300 GBP to approximately 25,000 users suspected of pirating game software. We’ll have more on that firm’s recent success in another post, by the way.
This litigation is seemingly RIAA-esque in its nature: making a monetary demand on that scale of users, with as little actual evidence as the firm likely has, is rather frowned upon in the U.S. It’s the kind of action that perhaps a huge industry association such as the RIAA and MPAA with vast lobbying powers could get away with, but it seems to be a bit beyond five publishers (and not even five of the largest).
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Posted by Dan on
August 20, 2008
Yes. Again. Over a controller. But not over the Wavebird controller for N64 this time…. no it’s over the Wii Remote or “Wiimote” as Nintendo is currently being sued for trademark infringement over (by the owners of the Weemote).
But unlike the Wii/Wee-mote case, this is a patent infringement claim. According to Cnet, Hillcrest Labs “has filed a complaint for patent infringement with the U.S. International Trade Commission, as well as a separate patent infringement suit in a U.S. District Court in Maryland regarding Nintendo’s video game console.” We’ll carry more, including the complaint and attached exhibits, after the break:
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Posted by Dan on
August 18, 2008
Develop mag has an update to the story regarding Silicon Knight’s lawsuit against Epic over the usefulness of the Unreal 3 engine. From the article:
But despite the fact that Epic has filed its own counter-claims against Silicon Knights, and that UE3 has become the most popular third-party engine solution amongst publishers and developers, [Denis] Dyack is adamant his claims still hold water.
He told us: “Well the trial is proceeding, we feel really good about our claims, and we’re hopeful that justice will be done. We all feel really strongly that they have defrauded us, and a major portion of the industry.”
The full interview is available here. It has some decent insights from Dyack about his views on the industry, but it’s mainly regarding Too Human.
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Posted by Dan on
August 18, 2008
Really not a whole lot to add to this. From Reuters, via Kotaku:
The offer, which will be put to a vote on Sept. 22, would help lower the cost of shares while increasing the quantity, typically a move made to spur sales. Ubisoft shares closed at just under $98 on Friday
According to Reuters, it is 66.64 Euro at close. Ubi’s ticker symbol is UBIP.PA.
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Posted by Dan on
August 18, 2008
Straight from the press release by EA, and email discussion between EA boss John Riccitello and Take Two board chair Strauss Zelnick:
As discussed on Friday, given the passage of time, we have to
validate the assumptions used in the model to support our offer
price of $25.74 per share in cash. In addition, we no longer believe
we can integrate Take-Two ahead of the important holiday season.
Accordingly, we require due diligence to support a transaction and
are therefore letting the tender offer expire tonight. However, we
are pleased to accept your offer to review your management
presentation as outlined in your letter.
View the whole thing after the jump (thanks Kotaku for the tip):
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