Blatantly stealing code is illegal. It doesn't matter what you think, it's illegal. No, not all code is meant to be re-used. It's quite obvious you have no clue what you're talking about.
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Bethesda Sues Warner Bros for Copying Fallout Shelter With New Westworld iOS Game
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Blatantly stealing code is illegal. It doesn't matter what you think, it's illegal. No, not all code is meant to be re-used. It's quite obvious you have no clue what you're talking about.
.. welcome to real life sir..
I should be the one saying that. You're talking about how there's no point in coding if the work can't be re-used. You're the one advocating for breaking the law. In the real world, you're not allowed to use things that don't belong to you. That's why lawsuits like this happen.
I'm not advocating the law, it just the way of business software now-days. Just ask any software company don't re-used the code and design or template or structure.
What the most issue is pattern , are they exclusive to customer x or customer y and are they in contract ? If not, nothing can be done.
bethesda is not winning this because like someone else said, this could be a genre and thus exempt from this kind of lawsuit.
however, in the article it was mentioned that bethesda is asking for a jury selection meaning they will be asking some random people who might not know the difference to be the deciding factor and will just indict WB for copyright infringement because it looks similar in style and gameplay.
sneaky sneaky but topics like this shouldn't even be on this kind of forum, what is the relation of these 2 games to ios / mac ? It's something that a game forum like IGN would publish. Looks like the writers are having a writer's block and got nothing good to post besides game news now
however, in the article it was mentioned that bethesda is asking for a jury selection meaning they will be asking some random people who might not know the difference to be the deciding factor and will just indict WB for copyright infringement because it looks similar in style and gameplay.
sneaky sneaky but topics like this shouldn't even be on this kind of forum, what is the relation of these 2 games to ios / mac ? It's something that a game forum like IGN would publish. Looks like the writers are having a writer's block and got nothing good to post besides game news now
It might be your technique in company x, but if moved to company z. It is ilegal anyway. .hard
No, companies don't get to hire the same people that worked on a project for another company and get free code. The code for Fallout Shelter belongs to Bethesda. Period.
we will see the result and pm me back
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i downloading now.. hehe..
it's on here cause the game is an iOS game. though yes, other than that the link to Apple/ Mac is tenuous
However the rest of your post is nonsense. this lawsuit isn't that the Westwood game looks and is in the same genre. This isn't an issue, as evidenced by the gaming world that has hundreds or thousands of games that have same genres and crossovers of elements
this is a case where Warner Brother's Westworld game is apparently using identical code itself to that of fallout shelter. Down to the same bugs. You cannot use someone elses owned code to create your own version of a game and profit from it unless you receive express consent by the original owner of the code. What Bethesda is showcasing is that Warner Brother's were so cheap and lazy that they used the same code, changed the paint and released it as their own. In most jurisdictions, that's illegal.
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I emplore you as a software developer to verify and check the contents of the contracts you have when you work for a 3rd party to create software for them.
in many cases, part of the deal is that any code you write while under the employ of that company is the sole ownership of that company. you as the developer do not retain any rights or ownership of that specific code that is found within the product you developed for that company.
(if you're freelance and make your own programs this might not be something you have encountered)
This is something many developers (and any EMPLOYEES for any company) need to be aware of. Just because you as an individual create something does not mean you as an individual retain the rights for that something. if you are employed/contracted for a company, almost always, they will own the product of any work done while under their employ.
In Bethesda case, they believe that not only is Warner Brothers essentially copying the game, from a stylistic and game mechanic point of view with only a "new coat of paint", they are also accusing them of stealing the code. The screenshots showing similarity is just showing how close the games themselves actually are as a point of evidence. But there are many other pieces of evidence claimed that further evidence that many pieces of code that were in Fallout Shelter are apparently also in Westworld. Down to the many of the identical bugs. Bugs are sort of like a fingerprint in this case. it's extremely unlikely that different pieces of code wind up with the identical set of bugs.
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Yes i have mention above, base on contract.
Even if you're a freelance or in my work of job scope, i don't store source code. It will as it provided and mostly as developer itself will hate whatever the work he/she have done. Mostly this issue is not about "CODE". It's the CEO between company issue.
I know, this is original the issue oracle and google had before, SOURCE CODE. In the just war of pattern . Who own the it. And fall back, it's not about the "CODE" .It's more about money and reputation.
The most fallback is we all awaiting the contract not the countersue note. Source Code is nothing, developer can duplicate the work without the code. But if pattern e.g one click amazon, amazon can sue everyone whom copy the idea..
It's much complicated thing then "SOURCE CODE" or "DEVELOPER" itself.
Developers are lazy and loathed to create duplicate code for a new game. They don’t get paid enough too create new code either. The problem is that using code the developer created as a basis for claiming copyright is dodgy. The developer could claim they wrote the same kind of code again vs. Copy and paste resulting in the same bugs.
I don’t know, for me suing a company because they took a shortcut decided by money constraints is self serving. The artwork is unique and not derivative either.
I don’t know, for me suing a company because they took a shortcut decided by money constraints is self serving. The artwork is unique and not derivative either.
I kinda hope that is the case. That game was fun (or at least it wasn’t the worst time sink I’ve ever played) but it was about as unoriginal as a game can be. They don’t deserve to be able to sue someone for copying it (but it really is a direct theft of assets I suppose something needs to be done).
i just play few hour ago, concept at first pretty diff. The only i can understand in westworld is in season 2 which the game offer the same information. The only similarity just pattern "click to zoom " .. Only that.
fallout serious hard to play for me. Westworld seem more harder .. i play sim city much easier
That may sound very incriminating, until you find out that the "copyrighted code" they're talking about isn't even Bethesda's own, it's an off-the-shelf game engine called Unity used by probably 3/4 of all the games by small developer titles on the App Store. The fact that they chose to word the fact that they use the same engine like that and then play up the fact that they ended up running into the same bug as they did makes the whole lawsuit pretty suspicious.
Having underground "ant farms" like Fallout Shelter also doesn't prove anything considering the Bethesda pilfered that idea from the original XCom (who in turn probably pilfered it from somewhere else) and it's not like the first time they're doing a spurious lawsuit. They've previously sued a developer for making a card battle game because they called the game "Scrolls" as they thought it could somehow be confused with their "The Elder Scrolls" franchise and was actually able to force the developer to abandon developing the game.
All in all, they're just full of you-know-what...
If you talk to lawyer vs Developer .. For sure diff mindset. Even for normal people
.In the end probably .. for big bucks not source code .
Actually, as has been pointed out, it comes down to the contractual agreement between the two companies; and who developed the code in question.
Without knowing all the contractual details and the code in question it's hard to decide who is in the wrong in this case.
I doubt it would wind up in a jury trial as neither side can be sure how a jury will decide based on the facts presented. Juries are the most dangerous thing in a courtroom.
Well, no of course it wouldn't, it's a news piece on a website. However Bethesda is a corporation worth - probably counting rather low - worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They would know how to write a contract, especially considering IP is literally everything they do over there - it's the backbone of the whole company.
I would be amazed if it didn't. Developers always have there own existing code bits they reuse in many projects. They would not give exclusive rights to these to any one client. I doubt Bethesda has rights to the code at all, Just the game as a whole.
Watching that video, the first thing that stands out is...
they gave Jeffrey Wright a race change?
they gave Jeffrey Wright a race change?
It's an argument, but no court has granted it.
Your last statement is correct. But reading their complaint, Bethesda seems to argue that if Behavior used a `for` loop, that's their `for` loop and Behavior is estopped from ever using it again. Obviously that's not enforceable. The abstraction level is very important -- where do you separate the functional from the creative / transferrable? There's a line of cases (and I've forgotten the holdings) with animation studios using similar looks and feels. I suspect those will provide guidance.
I think Bethesda missed their best argument -- trademark. If the look and feel of a product acquires "secondary meaning" in the market place that distinguishes the owner, the owner can protect that meaning. The classic example is Tiffany jewelry's blue. If another jewelry company used that blue, they'd infringe Tiffany's descriptive blue mark.
I think they could argue that Fallout Shelter's look and feel is distinct, and people associate that look and feel with Bethesda. (Such an argument requires expert market research and polling) And when a user plays Westworld, they are reasonably confused as to the owner of the game.
That said, courts try to promote efficiency -- not rebuilding the wheel every time. The "sweat of the brow" argument is more for patent law, not copyright or contract. (They should have filed design patents on Fallout Shelter).
And Fallout Shelter vs Westworld economics is not a zero some game. That is, it's hard to argue that buying Westworld harms Fallout Shelter. That'll be key in any contractual damages.
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I read their complaint. They are walking a thin line.
That said, this is a poor business decision. It's hard to argue that Westworld hurts their business. And if I owned a software development company and Bethesda came knocking, I'd have a long, very hard decision to work with them.
I really hope no one takes any legal advice from this thread (except LawJolla whose post just appeared). I don't know why, but developers have this unusual tendency to get very confused when it comes to copyright. Maybe it's from reading various open source licenses, but you see so many attempts to analogize answers to copyright from related fields like patents, trademarks or design rights.
You have to realize that copyright law is arbitrary and not necessarily consistent with related fields nor with common sense. Once you accept that, you realize you either need an expert to help you, spend a lot of time yourself (studying copyright, patents, trademarks and trade secrets and being able to tell them apart), and/or accept the risk and move on. But please don't make important decisions based on logical reasoning about how things should or seem to work. Most of what we see going on around us wouldn't stand up to challenge in court, but the case would cost more than the value of the code even if it weren't close to impossible to discover.
You have to realize that copyright law is arbitrary and not necessarily consistent with related fields nor with common sense. Once you accept that, you realize you either need an expert to help you, spend a lot of time yourself (studying copyright, patents, trademarks and trade secrets and being able to tell them apart), and/or accept the risk and move on. But please don't make important decisions based on logical reasoning about how things should or seem to work. Most of what we see going on around us wouldn't stand up to challenge in court, but the case would cost more than the value of the code even if it weren't close to impossible to discover.