Rainbow Six 'Copy' Lands Apple and Google In Copyright Court (bbc.com) 44
Ubisoft is suing Apple and Google over a Chinese mobile game it says is "a near carbon copy" of one of its most popular games, Rainbow Six: Siege. The BBC reports: Area F2 is "designed to closely replicate... virtually every aspect" of the game, it alleges, in a 43-page document, complete with screenshots. It is also suing the developer, Ejoy, owned by Chinese tech giant Alibaba. Characters, game modes, game maps, animations, and even the user interface were copied, the document alleges. "Virtually every aspect of AF2 is copied from R6S, from the operator selection screen to the final scoring screen and everything in between," Ubisoft claims. "In fact, the games are so similar that an ordinary observer viewing and playing both games likely would be unable to differentiate between them."
Ubisoft estimates Area F2 has been downloaded more than a million times and made "tens of thousands of dollars" on in-game purchases. It says it has raised the issue with both Apple and Google, which both take a cut of sales on their respective app stores. "But rather than take any measures to stop or curtail the infringement... Google and Apple instead decided that it would be more profitable to collect their revenue share from AF2 and continue their unlawful distribution," Ubisoft says in its court filing. Ubisoft is seeking a jury trial over the alleged copyright infringement, in the Central District Court of California.
Ubisoft estimates Area F2 has been downloaded more than a million times and made "tens of thousands of dollars" on in-game purchases. It says it has raised the issue with both Apple and Google, which both take a cut of sales on their respective app stores. "But rather than take any measures to stop or curtail the infringement... Google and Apple instead decided that it would be more profitable to collect their revenue share from AF2 and continue their unlawful distribution," Ubisoft says in its court filing. Ubisoft is seeking a jury trial over the alleged copyright infringement, in the Central District Court of California.
Not Google and Apple's problem (Score:5, Insightful)
If Ubisoft believes Ejoy is infringing their copyright, they should file a court case and ask for an injunction preventing further distribution while the case is ongoing. Once they have that injunction, they can take it to Apple and Google. Blaming Apple and Google for not taking action without due process should be a non-starter, no matter how valid their claims may be.
apple and google can say there Chinese store (Score:2)
apple and google can say there Chinese store is under Chinese control and that need an Chinese court order to remove an app
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Apple and Google both have the right to boot anyone off their platform for any reason, including made-up reasons and no reason.
Re:Not Google and Apple's problem (Score:4, Interesting)
They probably figured an injunction against Ejoy would be pointless becasue the Chinese government would never enforce it. While they're probably right about the chances of getting it enforced, it does seem like it would be a necessity for holding Google and Apple to account.
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If Ubisoft believes Ejoy is infringing their copyright, they should file a court case and ask for an injunction preventing further distribution while the case is ongoing. Once they have that injunction, they can take it to Apple and Google. Blaming Apple and Google for not taking action without due process should be a non-starter, no matter how valid their claims may be.
But both Apple and Google claim they will take down violations of/copyright infringement, but according to the suit, didn't when Ubisoft informed them of the violation. Ubisoft (rightly) claims that Apple's & Google's failure to take down the infringing content benefited them monetarily, which is ultimately why Ubisoft is taken them to court (from what I understand).
You are correct however that Ubisoft would be in a better position if it already had a case of infringement against Ejoy, but that'd probab
Re: Not Google and Apple's problem (Score:2)
It is not a copyright violation until a court or court the copyright office has said so. Just because I claim copyright doesn't mean I can enforce copyright simply by telling you to pay me.
What Ubisoft wants is that they stop distributing and pay them the money that Ejoy got. They have no claim to either until they can prove their copyright claims against ejoy.
That is the way it is supposed to be, frivolous claims like what happens on YouTube, where every creator has to prove their innocence in court, shoul
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DMCA says otherwise. Tell all the youtubers that their videos can't be taken down without a court case. Or the video stays up and Youtube pays the person claiming copyright infringement the ad revenue. No court required.
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It is telling, then, that Ubisoft has NOT sent Google and Apple DMCA notices.
For contrast, look to the Tetris 'look and feel' copyright case [b2ipreport.com] where the court found that the look and feel of the game was itself a copyrightable expression distinguishable from the elements of the game. Also compare PUBG's lawsuit against NetEase, which ended in a settlement [smcarthurlaw.com] a year later, with Battle Royale continuin
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You're awfully confident of that fact for someone with no known relationship to any of the parties.
Other reporting disagrees with you [gamedaily.biz] as well.
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No, the DMCA does not say otherwise. The DMCA says that the creator has to take it down unless they believe they did not infringe. At that point, it's up to the courts.
What YouTube and co does is basically avoid the court cases by simply taking everything down that got a claim against it and then having the creators prove their innocence to a private party instead of the big corporations just getting to censor whatever is against their interest.
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So if I kill someone and take all of their property and destroy it, it's not murder or theft so long as I destroy all of the evidence don't get caught and prosecuted in a caught of law! I didn't realise it worked that way.
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YouTube doesn't follow the DMCA. YouTube's takedown system is of their own creation. I think you need to do a little more research.
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It is not a copyright violation until a court or court the copyright office has said so.
O Rly? That's funny, because there was story not long ago [wsj.com] about how Google took down links from fake copyright claims - perhaps you can answer where were the court judgements there?
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First of all, Google/YouTube taking down links or videos prior to a suit is definitely possible, they're a private party after all. However as I said, those should not be standard actions, you should not have to prove your innocence as a creator to keep your content up and monetized.
The way Apple and Google is handling this is correct: you get a DMCA, you forward it to the creator, they say it's frivolous just keep it up, the next step is a court case between the creator and the claimer of the copyright.
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If Ubisoft believes Ejoy is infringing their copyright, they should file a court case and ask for an injunction preventing further distribution
Yeah exactly. The safest course of action for them is to react to court documents. It's sort of dangerous for them to start acting as judge and jury based on the claims of one side.
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The problem is Ejoy is not the only one distributing it, Apple and Google are as well, so they're also on the hook for copyright infringement.
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I won't get into the merits of the copyright claim itself, but I can address the rest.
First, distributing the work [cornell.edu] is itself a potential violation of copyright, even if Ejoy is the one responsible for preparing a derivative work (17 USC 106(3)). It would be hard to argue
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Also, there are plenty of copies. Apple and Google are not in any position to determine what is a copy of what - is there any evidence that Rainbow Six is the original game?
And yes, it matters, because perhaps the copy is a superior (it's Ubisoft, it's not that high a bar) version of that game style.
Gameplay isn't protected - that's why there are dozens of Monopoly clone games not made by USAopoly. They can own the trademark (so you can't call a game "Something-Monopoly"), but you can't patent the game trad
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If Ubisoft believes Ejoy is infringing their copyright, they should file a court case and ask for an injunction preventing further distribution while the case is ongoing.
What makes you think that isn't part of the proceedings? What makes you think suing a Chinese developer will have any affect directly. No doubt an injunction will be sought as part of the proceedings, because surprise surprise a single case often has more to it than what you get in a Slashdot headline.
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This way they would easily win in a chinese court.
If they have not done this, then they're basically fucked in chinese court.
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Blaming Apple and Google for not taking action without due process should be a non-starter, no matter how valid their claims may be.
Look up participatory infringement [richmond.edu].
Another form of contributory infringement is often called "participatory" infringement. For a participatory infringement cause of action to accrue, a plaintiff must show the defendant had (1) knowledge of a (2) direct infringement by another, and (3) induced, caused, or materially contributed to that infringing activity.
...
The court held that the advertising agency, the radio station, and the packaging agency could be liable for contributory infringement if they knew or should have known the infringing nature of the specific albums.
If you know - or should have known - the work contains a copyright violation, but participate in the sale or dissemination, you're liable.
Ubisoft's lawyers off the deep end (Score:4, Informative)
For starters, wrong targets. Apple and Google can sell this all day long, unless it is an ACTUAL copyright violation.
However, it's been very well established, from way back in the 80s, that simply recreating gameplay and even graphical style is not a copyright violation. Unless Area F2 has directly lifted assets or code from Rainbow Six, Ubisoft doesn't have a leg to stand on, and that's the reason their idiot lawyers are climbing so far out on a limb to attack the stores, attempting to SLAPP Area F2 down in the middle of their support chain.
It's disgraceful. Ubisoft should fire those terrible lawyers for a ploy that will only tar their company (which already has the stain of it's overbearing "Internet only" DRM) ...besides, Rainbow Six is about as generic a tactical shooter as anything else on the market. The genre is already saturated. WhoTF cares?
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However, it's been very well established, from way back in the 80s, that simply recreating gameplay and even graphical style is not a copyright violation.
I was thinking I heard the same thing so thanks for confirming that. I looked at the screen shots and it doesn't look like the assets were lifted, rather reproduced.
Re: Ubisoft's lawyers off the deep end (Score:2)
There is almost nothing that is likely copyrightable under US federal or state law. And what might be is so minimal that it would likely not Grant any kind of award from the court. Full analysis by an actual copyright lawyer can be found here https://youtu.be/FpSrazubI-U [youtu.be]
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Even if that weren't the case and this lawsuit were entirely specious, that would be a very stupid reason for Ubisoft to fire their lawyers. For one thing, lawsuits don't have to be justified to be useful. For another, this will only "tar" the company in the eyes of a few habitually indignant basement dwellers. Ubisoft has very little to lose here,
Lawyers... (Score:3)
Area F2 is "designed to closely replicate... virtually every aspect" of the game...
Characters, game modes, game maps, animations, and even the user interface were copied, the document alleges.
Those are two very different things. Imitation is legal. Copying is not. Closely replicating is also legal. It's also common. Incredibly common, in mobile software. (There's a distinct lack of creativity among mobile devs, judging by the endless flood of Match Three games.) But it's common in every other copyrightable thing too. If I sculpt a frog, it does not mean I own all possible sculpted frogs. It does not mean I own substantially similar sculpted frogs. It means I own that sculpted frog, and have rights to photos of that frog, and no more. If the guy down the street makes another frog, it's his frog, not mine.
This is where one of the great evils of current copyright law arises. It's really damn obvious, even to lawyers, that two different frog sculptures aren't the same thing and therefore easy to adjudicate arguments among sculptors. But make your song too similar to someone else's song and fuck you, pay them. Is it the same song? No. Is it even the same genre? No. Is there any chance of confusing one song for the other if you listen to both? No. Did Vanilla Ice still have to pay Queen and David Bowie? Yes. Wat?
In the digital world, proving copying of whole assets is trivially easy. You can compare byte for byte. If they match, you infringed, done and dusted. Proving modifications of copied assets is harder, but not all that difficult. This tree is the same as that tree, you just changed the hue of the texture, so you infringed. That ease of proof of actual literal copying works in favor of sufficiently narrow copyright, from what I've seen. Because it's so easy to prove literal copying, apparent copying by paying an artist to make something substantially similar gets considered new and unique much more easily than it does for, say, music. It's much closer to the sculptor case than it is to the songwriter case.
The written word is also closer to the sculptor case, or 4000 (40000? 400000?) authors of vampire stories would all be paying royalties to Bram Stoker's estate. Writing a story about vampires does not mean I owe Stephenie Meyer money. Writing a story about angsty teen vampires also does not mean I owe Stephenie Meyer money. Writing a story about angsty teen vampires with glittery skin still does not mean I owe Stephenie Meyer money. Writing a story about an angsty teen vampire with glittery skin named Edward Cullen who dates another angsty teen human named Bella Swan, well, as long as I don't make any money off of it, it's fanfic, and the lawyers will pretend not to see it. Make enough money and it's a derivative work, and I'm probably paying royalties. (Or more likely ceased and desisted and paying massive fines, and selfish authors really are missing a bet here. Don't stamp out the fanfic. Make money off of it.)
Personally I think the songwriter case is a travesty of justice that should never have been allowed. It should have been much more like a sculptor case. In this case, if Area F2 just looks a lot like Rainbow Six: Siege, yes, even to game mode, maps, animations, and interfaces, it should be entirely legal as an independent work. Only if it actually has copies of assets should it be infringing, and it should be infringing proportional to the assets copied. Not having seen either game, I have no idea which is the case, and I'm certainly not going to pollute my search bubble by looking for either one. I'm sure Slashdot can tell me if it's really a copy or just an imitation.
Of course in Disney's and Ubisoft's world, I'm not supposed to be allowed to ever again tell a story about a scullery maid with a wicked stepmother who picked up an AK-47 and went on a rampage in a downtown area because that's copyrighted you pleb!
Re: Lawyers... (Score:2)
Who is Copying Whom? (Score:3)
I looked at screen shots from both of these. To be they both look just like Doom.
Re: Who is Copying Whom? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, the cheap Wolfenstein knockoff. That one! :)
Solution (Score:2)
Why doesn't Ubisoft ask NATO to send an elite group of soldiers to settle the matter?
Xyz (Score:2)
I've heard tales that new apps are cloned in as few as several hours after they are put up.
If a big company's product suffers this and the app store owners don't care, what hope is there for the little guy?
Are knock offs copyright infringement? (Score:3)
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Most of the major shooters look basically identical to me. As some one that doesn't plan many shooters these days, [...]
That's a big Freudian slip, buddy.
False equivalency (Score:2)
That would be like suing the gas station that was used by a bank robber during a getaway.