Yeah. That’s probably why they haven’t been as aggressive as they could be on removing them. If lawsuits like this become more common Apple and Google might police clone apps more aggressively.
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PUBG Maker Sues Apple and Google for Not Removing Clone Apps
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I'm no lawyer, but... surely PUBG has to prove (legally) that the games are infringing before they can then go after Apple and Google (if A&G then don't respond to the legal ruling)? If Apple were to respond to every claim like this (before its been proven in a court of law) and start pulling apps, then they would be opening themselves up for counterclaims wouldn't they??
This is correct. I'm surprised the IP attorney in this thread hasn't commented on this aspect, but in the US (and most other jurisdictions), gameplay mechanics are covered under patent law, not copyright. Copyright only protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself, and unless Krafton applied for and received a patent for the battle royale format (possible, but highly unlikely), they have no standing for an infringement claim on the gameplay aspect whatsoever.
The only other area where they could potentially have a claim is under trademark protection. There is a legal concept called trade dress which covers the "look and feel" of a product, and the legal standard generally applied is whether a competing product causes "confusion in the marketplace;" that is, if someone could plausibly mistake your clone for the real thing.
So they might have a case for trademark infringement, there's a small chance they could have a case for patent infringement if they actually secured a software patent on battle royale (then is Epic licensing it for Fortnite?), but unless they can prove the clones use specific media or code from PUBG, copyright doesn't enter into this case.
App Store review process doing what it does best: Giving the green light to apps that will make Apple more money.
Solitaire to their lawyers: "Are you seeing this?!?"
The only reason Bethesda had a case was because parts of the game literally had copied code from Fallout Shelter. Otherwise there would have been very little that would have been copyrightable.
This is a common misconception between copyright and trademark law. There is no burden of defense on copyright holders; failure to pursue copyright infringements does not affect future infringement claims. Trademark law, however, does require the trademark holder to defend infringement for future claims to be upheld, otherwise the trademark is at risk of being considered "abandoned" by a court.
That makes little sense. The money generated by clones would have instead been generated by the original app (and with a portion going to Google/Apple). Most clone apps walk a very fine line between imitation and actual infringement of IP so app stores reviewers are probably not who you want to be deciding what is a clone vs what isn't. Even in this case it's doubtful Krafton would win unless they can prove copyrightable IP was stolen.
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One would think that the proper route would have been to have a court grant an injunction or something like that.
If it goes to court, I'm hoping we get some Good Nuggets, just like we got from the Epic vs Apple court battle !
Epic Games was sued, but the suite was dropped. it's mentioned in the article.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/27/17509114/pubg-fortnite-lawsuit-copyright-dropped
If it was a profit motive you'd think Apple and Google would be more trigger happy in culling clones since from my experience clones typically flourish because they charge less than the real thing. It's very possible that Apple by default keep an app on the App Store unless infringement is proven in court. Otherwise they would be accused of being anti-competitive and hurting smaller developers.
Tell us you didn't read the article without telling us you didn't read the article.....
Apple and Google are probably included in the lawsuit so Krafton can get back lost revenue/damages from both App Stores if they win. The main target is Garena and I don't think their relationship with either Apple and Google is really the main issue here.
We’d be in a worse place.But alternative app stores would have clones too... and we'd still be in this same place.
That's funny...I seem to recall parachuting onto an island as being part of the Just Cause gameplay experience back in 2006.
Copyright infringing games in the App Store? Impossible! The App Store is carefully curated
Well, as I said, it's a hard line to draw but there's a lot of app-spam in the AppStore. I'd argue ripping off someone elses app and selling it as your own with an ever so slightly modified name ranks high among dubious business practices, so we're probably trying to avoid much of the same garbage.
It was. And I enjoyed it. But I hope that doesn’t mean all battle royale games (like cod mobile) are in target here
Right, it’s a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation for Apple. Being more proactive at removing or blocking clone apps makes it more likely that they’d run into some of the same abuse YouTube’s ContentID (and human reviewed copyright claim) system experiences (false claims of ownership, uploads of songs using permissively licensed samples*, use of copyright measures to silence criticism, lack of protections for fair use), on top of inevitable developer complaints that would result in increased regulatory demand. With a more laissez-faire by default approach, they open themselves up to lawsuits like this one.
* Think songs that sample the so-called YouTube Audio Library, then get uploaded to ContentID, where the uploader goes on retroactively to claim monetization on all users of the original track.
Apple certainly did open a Pandora’s Box, didn’t they? But this is a Pandora’s Box that kind of needed opened. Too many copy/paste jobs are there.
We don’t need alternative app stores. We just need to be able to side load X number of apps (five or less likely). Roku used to allow side loads until they figured out we all used it to install VideoBuzz (the single best YouTube app I’ve ever seen).
Are you sure about that including the claim "unique game opening "air drop" feature" is that not a Fortnight unique feature that first appeared in THAT game for Epic?
If I'm correct would that not hurt their case significantly?
Music copyright has a specific length of time reached before copyright can be claimed, I believe.
probably cause they didn't hit the 35% threshold in similarity, i'm not a IP attorney but did cover IP in one of my 2L course in law school.