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Zynga Sues Brazilian Dev For Copying Its Games
An anonymous reader writes "In what can only be described as a case of the pot calling the kettle black, Zynga has launched and settled a lawsuit against Brazilian game developer Vostu after accusing Vostu of copying their games. The settlement resulted in the loss of jobs for many Vostu employees. How Zynga managed to carry out such actions while keeping a straight face after dealing with similar allegations remains to be seen."
*sigh*.
Zynga has more money and better lawyers.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
What a silly question. It's not about consistency, morality, or ethics. It's about what they can get away with, how far they can get away with it, and what happens if/when they get caught.
Gotta get with the times. There's no such thing as corporate responsibility. How the money is made, where it comes from, and what the consequences of making it are, are all problems left for everyone else to deal with. There's only quarterly earnings, year over year growth, and valuation. Get in, make a boatload, and pray to your local diety you get out before the whole system comes crashing down on the heads of all the less fortunate ones who couldn't get out in time.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
How could they possibly sue a brazilian devs? Surely that would be way too many for the court to handle at the same time.
I believe what you mean to type was: "It's like RAAAAAEEEEYYYAAAAAAAAAAAIIN... on your wedding day!"
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
There ARE businesses that do not behave like this and they will get my money.
I hate Zynga and their crap games anyway but this would just encourage me to avoid them.
Why would they need to keep a straight face? They can afford better lawyers than anyone they're likely to sue or be sued by. The kind of business Zynga is involved in has nothing to do with ethics or image. If it was they'd have been out of business long ago.
A predator kills and eats its prey while simultaneously doing everything within its power to make its own predators fail to kill and eat it. This is not hypocrisy.
If Zynga sees the illegality of its own practice of copying other people's games as a calculated risk of doing business, then suing others for doing to it exactly what it does to others is really no different than basic predator behavior (which is natural enough...humans are predators after all).
If you misinterpret Zynga's allegations to be some sort of political or moral statement about what kinds of business models/actions are not appropriate, then yeah I guess they are being hypocritical. But since when do large wealthy corporations bother with principles?
Claim 71 is the most interesting.
Zynga claims that Vostu replicated a "bug" that was in CityVille. This kind of claim has been successful in map making and directories to prove copying of works. I would suspect this is why Vostu settled.
Looking at the claims it would be very interesting to know if any source was actually lifted from Zynga by Vostu. But from a layperson or judge looking at it the conclusion may be the same.
Game rules are not subject to copyright, however the exact source code and images are. I can imagine a judge saying that this "bug/feature" while independently coded in a clean room - is the equivalent of a trap street on a map or fictitious entry in a directory.
Nope, you don't need millions of dollars.
You wait for Zynga to win and set precedent.
Then you sue using their own precedent against them.
No major lawyers required. Even a fresh law grad could figure it out.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I don't see what the issue is here. Yes, Zynga copies other people's games. Yes, this company was just doing the same thing. What you people are all apparently are missing though is that Zynga is simply applying simple, well know, and accepted legal practice of "I have more lawyers so fuck you because I said so". I really don't see how you can argue with that.
But lots of other parts are copyrightable. Such as some of the graphics and sounds.
The dream heights/tiny tower was an obvious copy of the gameplay. But the graphics were completely different. And you are alllowed to do that.
These ones look much closer to copying of elements like art, which you aren't allowed to do.
Of course once you introduce patents gameplay might end up protected - but I don't believe that's applicable in either of the cases.
and it smacks of a massively corrupt, medieval style social organization in which 'might makes right', and trial by combat was the norm. if we have 'trial by most lawyers', completely disregarding any principles of legal ethics or empiricism, we have not really advanced past the state described in the Viking Sagas of the 11th century .
You wait for Zynga to win and set precedent. Then you sue using their own precedent against them.
That assumes that any lawsuit would actually get won. The majority of the time a company will settle the case if it looks like they are going to lose (or they deem it cheaper to settle than pay for a lengthy trial).
...that don't have farmville, mafia wars or yoville accounts?
By your definition, both slapstick and knock-knock jokes qualify as irony.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The really ironic thing is, supposedly laws are to supposed to remove 'might makes right' from disputes in a civilized society, and move disagreements to a courtroom where they can be decided in a rational way without bloodshed. If we have gotten to a place as a society where having more money allows one to buy legal victories with more lawyers, then there really isn't any reason for the fiscal/legal 'little guys' to not just pull out a gun and kill someone they disagree. The whole non-violent method of solving disputes goes straight out the window.
Interestingly enough, that is how radical and terrorist groups are created: the disenfranchisement of a group from society because it feels it has no voice. With no stakes in a society, there isn't any reason not to kill anyone who looks at you cross eyed.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Google didn’t create the first search engine. Apple didn’t create the first mp3 player or tablet. And, Facebook didn’t create the first social network. But these companies have evolved products and categories in revolutionary ways. They are all internet treasures because they all have specific and broad missions to change the world.
It's one thing to post a rip-off game or a general concept. But Vostu did exact replicas. As in, side-by-side pictures look basically identical, game bugs were replicated, artwork is nearly identical. I think there is a line and that Vostu crossed it.
What are the comments here arguing? That exact copies of games should be allowed? That's obviously faulty. That no games with any similarity can come out? That doesn't seem right either. Obviously there has to be some compromise between these two extremes.
Really a lot of the comments here boil down to "I hate Zynga games," or "I hate lawyers."
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Without this gem, the discussion is not really complete.
“I don’t f***ing want innovation. “You’re not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.”
Yes, it's too bad they didn't fight the suit. All they had to do is show a copy of that Zynga letter that was basically saying that, in the cutthroat business of mobile apps, copying other people's apps was the norm and you should just learn to live with it and stop whining. That's basically them giving anyone permission to do the same, right? My defense would consist of a cover page, a copy of the recent article comparing one of Zyga's games to the original, and a copy of Zynga's response letter. Nothing else, no hundreds of pages of quotes from laws, just those two articles. Case closed.
those businesses will start behaving exactly like these, when one of companies like these come and start competing with them with these methods. they have no choice. otherwise they would go under.
allowing bad behavior, forces others to the same behavior.
Read radical news here
No, it's simply called 'doing business'. The prize is money.
Nothing has changed, companies have always acted like that if it gets them the most money. It's not like in the last few months we've changed the rules to favor those who act like greedy bastards -- that's always been how it's worked.
And, sadly, Zynga is far from the first company to be involved in two separate lawsuits, and arguing totally opposite (and incompatible) things in each.
Corporations and lawyers don't have cognitive dissonance by doing contradictory things.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Vostu is a Brazilian company, but the main workforce is in Argentina. Zynga came to the country first by spreading rumours that they were going to acquire a company. Zynga was, then, in the typical process of expanding it's assets and workforce to raise the value of their IPO or whole company value (The same way Playdom did before being sold to Disney, for example).
Vostu is very strong in South America, the strongest social game company here, so it was naturally the best target of aquisition by Zynga. However, Vostu execs asked for a much higher price than Zynga was willing to pay. In consequence, Zynga sued Vostu to attempt to drive their price down.
But in the end, the lawsuit carried for too long, and Zynga decided to go public anyway. Having no more reason to acquire Vostu, the lawsuit was settle briefly before the IPO.
So, not really pot calling the kettle black, just corporate bussiness as usual.