Games with Legal Issues

Banned in G.B. and Ireland. ESRB issued "AO" rating. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo claim they will not allow release of the game for their consoles. Current legal question: What about Sega v. Accolade? Rockstar doesn't need any company's permission under that holding. However, the DMCA may have changed the rules of the game. No one knows for sure except in the 8th circuit and probably the 2nd circuit, which went against Sega. Trying to rely on Sega is just asking for a long, expensive fight with 3 big corporations with deep pockets, something Rockstar does not want.

This was the first of 5 games at issue in Sega v. Accolade, 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1993). The others were "Star Control", "Hardball!", "Onslaught", "Turrican", and "Mike Ditka Power Football." The 9th Circuit held "Although the question is fairly debatable, we conclude based on the policies underlying the Copyright Act that disassembly of copyrighted object code is, as a matter of law, a fair use of the copyrighted work if such disassembly provides the only means of access to those elements of the code that are not protected by copyright and the copier has a legitimate reason for seeking such access" Hooray for reverse engineering and the little guys everywhere!

Davidson & Assoc. v. Jung, 422 F.3d 630 (8th Cir. 2005), was litigated over the BnetD service operated by defendants as an alternative to Battle.net for players of Starcraft and Diablo. "Both parties moved for summary judgment. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Blizzard and Vivendi, and determined that: (1) Blizzard's software end-user license and terms of usage agreements were enforceable contracts; (2) Appellants waived any "fair use" defense; (3) the agreements did not constitute misuse of copyright; and (4) Appellants violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). We affirm." Id.

Hot Coffee, anyone? The Bi-Partisan bandwagon-jumping (that had this game re-rated by ESRB to "AO" from "M" long after its release) made the politicians riding said wagon sound like over-the-hill blowhards. Just look at how much negative press Hillary Clinton got on urbandictionary.com (for example) for her role in the hot coffee media circus. Assuming arguendo that GTA causes the rate of violent crime sprees to increase, using that fact to argue for its removal from stores is akin to arguing for the removal of Marx's Communist Manifesto from stores because of its influence on young minds. Isn't it obvious that the little red book has caused far more damage to society and individual lives than any video game ever will? Free speech trumps all, and shame on politicians who ignore this fundamental right to get some face time on 24 hour cable news.

Silicon Knights, developers of the upcoming Too Human, sued Epic Games, publishers of Gears of War, on breach of contract over the license agreement SK had with Epic for the Unreal 3 Engine. SK Alleged in the lawsuit that Epic was two years late on delivery of the engine. Dennis Dyack said it was "pretty clear" that Gears was built "on the backs of the licensees".