News broke last week that Take Two, the rights holder to Grand Theft Auto (both as its publisher and as owner of Rockstar Games, its developer), will take legal action against the BBC in the UK over the BBC’s forthcoming TV drama Game Changer – which is all about the story of how Grand Theft Auto was made. Sorry I’m coming a little late to the party (I was in Sweden speaking at Nordic Game Conference- see separate blog post coming about that). Anyway, a few folks asked me what I think about this, so here we go. Continue reading Some legal thoughts on Take Two vs the BBC over Grand Theft Auto
Category: Litigation
Spry Fox settles with 6Waves – does it matter?
Spry Fox and 6Waves have settled their legal dispute over allegations that 6Waves had cloned Spry Fox’s game Triple Town. News of the lawsuit received great attention and no small amount of oppobrium directed at 6Waves. News of the settlement has received similar fanfare. But does this really matter to the wider games or software industry? I don’t think so – not from a purely legal perspective anyway. Continue reading Spry Fox settles with 6Waves – does it matter?
Small UK IP lawsuits get quicker and cheaper (in theory)
A long awaited development in UK civil procedure is due to make low value IP infringement claims quicker and cheaper. It is called the small claims track, it will be open for IP infringement cases worth less than £5,000 and it will be heard by the specialist Patents County Court.
My friend Rosie Burbidge, a solicitor at Rouse (as well as a writer of the Art and Artifice art law blog and contributor to the famous IPKat IP law blog) wrote on the Guardian about this development. This is (some of) what she said: Continue reading Small UK IP lawsuits get quicker and cheaper (in theory)
Games law update, June 2012
Hi everyone – here we are for another games law update…
Tetris wins the first legal victory against clones
The Tetris Company has won a court case against the developer of an iOS Tetris clone – this is a really significant legal development in fighting clones, so I’m quite excited about it. The case is here and is reported on extensively by the 1709 copyright law blog (via Rosie Burbidge – thanks!), which I recommend you read, so I’ll just summarise the facts briefly here and add a few observations. Continue reading Tetris wins the first legal victory against clones
The latest on the Infinity Ward lawsuit
The Infinity Ward lawsuit – the epic games industry lawsuit between Activision, EA and the founders of Call of Duty creator Infinity Ward – was meant to go to trial yesterday. It hasn’t…but it’s still rumbling on. In fact, it’s been pretty busy. I thought I’d summarise quickly some of those recent developments: Continue reading The latest on the Infinity Ward lawsuit
Could the Xbox 360 be banned in the USA?
It’s common knowledge there are a range of patent wars ongoing in technology right now (which I’ve previously written about here). One of those patent wars is between Motorola and Microsoft over the Xbox 360 console – and boy, it’s getting hot. My friend Florian Mueller of Foss Patents told me about it and it seems so interesting I thought I’d write a quick summary based on his hard work. Continue reading Could the Xbox 360 be banned in the USA?
Games Law Update: April 2012
Hi everyone – here’s your dollop of games law news over the last month, curated by yours truly…
Lawsuits:
- The big daddy in games lawsuits approaches: the Infinity Ward/Activision/EA lawsuit apparently has a trial date set of May 29th 2012. Regular readers will know I’ve been following this lawsuit with great interest for some time. Get ready for a settlement soon or (more likely, in my view) some serious fireworks…
- An author is suing Ubisoft for allegedly plagiarising his novels in creating the Assassin Creed series of games. Unfortunately, regardless of the legal merits, this has resulted in a small disaster for the author – including being Amazon bombed. It’s a useful reminder that the fallout from a lawsuit isn’t just legal – it can hurt you in the PR department just as much. Continue reading Games Law Update: April 2012
Games Law Round-Up: February and March 2012
Sorry – this is two months’ worth of games law news updates, since GDC got in the way of finalising the February update. Still, what a couple of months it’s been! Here we go… Continue reading Games Law Round-Up: February and March 2012
Timegate beats Southpeak in Section 8 lawsuit
Timegame Studios, developer of the Section 8 first person shooter, has just won an interesting lawsuit against publisher SouthPeak Interactive (via Houston Press and Courthouse News). The case is a useful reminder of both the strength and weaknesses of arbitration, as well giving us some useful practical tips for drafting good publishing agreements (skip to the end of the post for that). I’ve written a summary of the case below. Continue reading Timegate beats Southpeak in Section 8 lawsuit