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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*.
Lawyers maybe, but they lost nearly half a billion in Q4 alone.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
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.
I think you should read that article closer. Revenue was up significantly. User base was up significantly.
The losses were attributed to one time expenses related to their IPO.
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.
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 .
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!
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.”