{"id":1876,"date":"2013-09-05T14:01:38","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T14:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1876"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:00","slug":"a-new-hope-the-saga-continues-king-maker-of-candy-crush-saga-sues-6waves-for-copyright-infringement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/a-new-hope-the-saga-continues-king-maker-of-candy-crush-saga-sues-6waves-for-copyright-infringement\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Hope: The Saga Continues–King, Maker of Candy Crush Saga, Sues 6waves for Copyright Infringement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, September 5, 2013, by Amanda Colley
\nThere have been numerous lawsuits<\/a> regarding video games that address various legal issues, such as lawsuits regarding employment conditions<\/a>, blame in criminal cases<\/a>, and athlete likeness<\/a> compensation.\u00a0 A recurring issue in video game law, however, is copyright infringement.\u00a0 Video game history is littered with stories of video game clones violating copyrights.\u00a0 Competitors have copied games\u2019 design, gameplay, artwork, and even names.\u00a0 Nintendo and Atari famously duked it out in the courts<\/a> for years.\u00a0 Almost all the classic video games have been embroiled in copycat suits<\/a>: Pong, PacMan, Donkey Kong, and Tetris.
\nAs the game industry and market evolved, social games burst onto the scene, offering wide appeal and quick(er) turn-outs compared with more traditional AAA console games.\u00a0 Social game production presents the perfect opportunity for unscrupulous publishers to churn out cloned games, or, to use the industry phrase, \u201cfast-follows<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Some don\u2019t mind, such as Jeff Wofford<\/a>, developer of Crush the Castle, the arguable base for wildly popular<\/a> Angry Birds.\u00a0 But some game developers do mind, like NimbleBit\u2019s co-owner, Ian Marsh<\/a>, in a Tweet to Zynga about the Tiny Tower clone, Dream Heights.
\nSome developers mind so much, there have been several lawsuits over social game clones. \u00a0For example, in October 2012, Spry Fox sued<\/a> 6waves Lolapps for allegedly copying Triple Town into Yeti Town.\u00a0 This was settled<\/a> quietly out of court, so this outcome produced no usable legal guidance on how much copying is just too much.<\/p>\n

There is a great need for courts to provide guidance regarding the question of how much similarity is just too much?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When industry titans, Zynga and EA, clashed<\/a> over Sims Social and The Ville, Professor Greg Lastowka<\/a> hoped that the deep pockets would see the case through to the end, not settle.\u00a0 However, this dream was dashed when Eric Goldman<\/a>\u2019s prediction came true:\u00a0 Zynga and EA, like Spry Fox and 6waves Lolapps before them, also reached a confidential settlement<\/a>.\u00a0 Again, the industry was left with no clear guidance on acceptable game similarities.
\nEnter the brand new lawsuit.\u00a0 King, which rose to prominence with its ridiculously lucrative and incredibly addictive Candy Crush Saga, filed a lawsuit<\/a> on August 27, 2013, in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.\u00a0 King argued that 6waves infringed the copyright of two of King\u2019s games, Pet Rescue Saga and Farm Heroes Saga.\u00a0 Remember that 6waves was sued<\/a> less than a year ago by Spry Fox over similar copyright infringement claims.\u00a0 While there are certainly commonalities<\/a> between King\u2019s and 6waves\u2019 games, if the parties settle, the courts will miss yet another opportunity to provide judicial guidance.
\nOf course, copyright law demands that games cannot completely and fully copy each other, which would be obvious infringement.\u00a0 However, James Grimmelman<\/a> commented, \u201cWithout a good way to measure nonliteral similarities between games, the industry has developed a dysfunctional culture of copycattery.\u201d
\nA primary purpose of courts and the legal system is to help settle disputes and lay down guidelines.\u00a0 There is expediency, value, and benefit to settling out of court, and many smaller companies lack the funds to sustain lengthy, expensive lawsuits.\u00a0 However, more lawsuits may continue to be filed in the present world lacking a bright line legal standard. \u00a0There is a great need for courts to provide guidance regarding the question of how much similarity is just too much?\u00a0 King\u2019s suit against 6waves provides a new hope for the court to issue legal rules of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, September 5, 2013, by Amanda Colley There have been numerous lawsuits regarding video games that address various legal issues, such as lawsuits regarding employment conditions, blame in criminal cases, and athlete likeness compensation.\u00a0 A recurring issue in video game law, however, is copyright infringement.\u00a0 Video game history is littered with stories of video game …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7589,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1876\/revisions\/7589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}