We Hardly Knew Ye: PUBG Drops Lawsuit Against Epic Over Fortnite Similarities
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About a month ago we learned that PUBG Corp., the company behind the game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, had sued Epic Games, makers of Fortnite, earlier this year in South Korea. This whole dust up between the two game developers has been monumentally frustrating, specifically due to the folks at PUBG being confused as to whether video games get any IP protection (they do!) and, then, whether fairly generic game modes and game genres are afforded copyright protection (they're not!).The problem for PUBG in all of this is that its game mode of a battle royale pitting a hundred players against each other is simply not something that fits into copyright law's protection. As we've explained, there is an idea/expression dichotomy in many country's copyright laws, in which the specific expression is afforded copyright but mere ideas are not. For example, the art assets for PUBG absolutely are copyrightable, while the concept of a battle royale is not. Due to that, PUBG's lawsuit was always going to face a steep uphill climb to come out in its favor.With that in mind, then, it's probably not terribly surprising that PUBG has now dropped the lawsuit entirely.The studio behind PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has dropped its lawsuitagainst the creators of global sensation Fortnite, ending a legal battle between two of the world’s hottest games.PUBG Corp. sent a letter of withdrawal to Epic Games Inc.’s attorneys on Monday and the South Korean case has since closed, according to the website of the local court system. PUBG and its law firm confirmed the action but wouldn’t say why, nor whether a settlement had been reached. Representatives for Epic in Korea had no immediate comment. There is of course no way to be sure, but with PUBG not crowing about a settlement, it's plausible none was ever reached. Certainly on the merits it would make much more sense for the legal team for PUBG to have finally convinced the executives there that either the case was not likely to be a winner, or that their interests were better served not entering into a lengthy and expensive legal battle with Epic, or both.Complicating all of this is how intertwined PUBG and EPIC are, from ownership of both to the technology behind PUBG.Both are part-owned by social media and gaming giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. and have carved out commanding positions in the Battle Royale format. But PUBG contended in January that Epic’s Fortnite mimicked many of the characteristics of its own title. To complicate matters, Epic provides PUBG with its Unreal Enginetechnology, used to create PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and an industry standard for professional game developers. All of this would seem to add up to PUBG finally coming to its senses. Ultimately, that's a good thing for all parties, but it would be great if game companies motivated by jealousy didn't attack one another in the first place.
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posted at: 12:14am on 29-Jun-2018
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The Monkey Selfie Case Continues, But The Dancing Baby One Does Not
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Thankfully this is not a post about the Monkey Selfie case, which should have ended by now but has not. Instead it's about Lenz v. Universal, the Dancing Baby case, which shouldn't have come to an end yet, but has. This week the EFF announced that the case has been settled.The problem though isn't that it the case has been settled. It had been remanded for trial, which would have been a long, expensive slog to not accomplish what the case really needed to accomplish: put teeth back into the Section 512(f) remedy that the DMCA is supposed to afford to deter illegitimate takedown demands. The problem is that the opportunity to provide that benefit was extinguished when the US Supreme Court denied cert and refused to review the Ninth Circuit's interpretation of that provision. So we'll be stuck with this precedent until another case can prompt another look by the court and the serious issue of censorship-via-takedown notice can finally get the judicial attention it deserves.Maybe it will even be a case where a monkey has taken a video of himself dancing along to music, because the rights of monkeys have so far been a lot more successful in attracting en banc attention from the Ninth Circuit than the speech rights of people. And maybe it won't even take 10 years of litigation (that's 32 in monkey years) to find out.
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posted at: 12:14am on 29-Jun-2018
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