PUBG Maker Sues Apple and Google for Not Removing Clone Apps

[MysticCow]

They were, but PUBG eventually dropped the suit. Did you read the article?

The one against Epic was dropped, but NetEase settled out of court. So it is kind of a sticky wicket when it comes to this one.

Which lawsuit does the judge take on for precedence in THIS case? Do you take "settled out of court," which means the case has merit? Or do you take the "dropped" one, meaning there wasn't enough merit THEN to pursue so why NOW?

Granted, Apple isn't 100% innocent here, as the clones are almost a literal copy/paste job, but the judge in question has two conflicting precedents from this same company to look at when hearing arguments and making the decision.

 

[suns93]

Here’s one I hope succeeds. Don’t care about this game or its maker, but I’m sick and tired of trying to figure out which of every app is the real deal.

I suspect it’s going to be a matter of “where’s the line” though— is it a “copy”, or is it building on and improving an earlier concept. It’s really hard to filter garbage based on an abstract measure.

It absolutely falls into the “you know it when you see it” category - but unfortunately that presumes some knowledge of video games. Very unlikely they get a judge that has any.

Whereas with music you can play Marvin Gaye’s Got to Give it Up and Pharrell’s Blurred Lines to a judge and they can reasonably make a determination if it crosses the line or not - do we expect the judge to play these two games to make a similar determination? Personally, I think the answer should be yes, but to circle back, I don’t anticipate they’ll have the requisite video game knowledge for the exercise to be fruitful.

 

[suns93]

2 questions

1- Can you copyright an idea?

2- Why are there 100M people playing this game instead of PUBG when both are free?

Responding to #2 - excellent question. I think PUBG would have a good argument that Garena took advantage of the fact that PUBG was banned at one point or another in the following locations: India, Iraq, Nepal, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and China said they were going to ban it until just by coincidence Tencent was brought in as a publishing partner and then it was able to be released.

Essentially, the clone ducked the bans by being the same game just by a different name.

 

[dwaite]

Yeah, but then they would sue the infringing clone developer directly, instead of the gatekeeper who is not complying with laws.

With multiple app stores, PUBG would still need to coordinate with the gatekeepers, who are the ones who even have contact information to determine _who_ the infringing clone developer is.

It would just mean they would have to open more concurrent lawsuits, possibly in multiple legal jurisdictions. So in other words, it just costs the infringed developer more money.

And the clone developer would have a hard time trying to distribute their cloned game.

They would target whichever store(s) had the most lax review policy in a shotgun approach. They would have a substantially higher, practically guaranteed chance to get in a store.

 

[davidjschloss]

Yeah, but then they would sue the infringing clone developer directly, instead of the gatekeeper who is not complying with laws. And the clone developer would have a hard time trying to distribute their cloned game. In that case Apples is a accomplice.

No, other app stores would still be a gatekeeper, and they would get sued.

You've just supposed a world in which an unlimited number of alternative app outlets have better motives and policies in place than Apple and Google. There would be rip-off app stores the same way there are rip off apps. There would likely be app stores made by foreign entities that are distributing spyware.

I don't get how a clone developer would have a hard time distributing with more places to put their app.

 

[ACHD]

Why hasn't Epic Games been sued by PUBG?

It is significantly different, Fortnite focus's on building items and different styles of gameplay in my opinion.

 

[freedomlinux]

Those mods were in turn based on the film Battle Royal

And the film battle Royale (2000) is based on the book Battle Royale (1996-1999)

 

[MacBH928]

Responding to #2 - excellent question. I think PUBG would have a good argument that Garena took advantage of the fact that PUBG was banned at one point or another in the following locations: India, Iraq, Nepal, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and China said they were going to ban it until just by coincidence Tencent was brought in as a publishing partner and then it was able to be released.

Essentially, the clone ducked the bans by being the same game just by a different name.

the combined population of India, Pakistan, and Indonesia is like 2 billion so that explains the 100 million users

 

[nouvejetzt]

What about the To-Do apps? There is probably a new one every second on both stores 😅

 

[Jeaz]

I think you are muddling issues. Curated and trustworthy doesn’t necessarily mean ‘free from clones’. The clone game might work perfectly, play beautifully and have open and transparent IAPs. It is therefore curated and trustworthy because Apple have checked that the game works and made sure that any costs are clearly listed. It’s for a court of law to decide whether a game has infringed on anything legally protected, not Apple.

Protecting both developers and customers against blatant copyright infringement should fall onto Apple, just as Google is required to keep YouTube clean of unauthorised copies of videos and music.

 

[SDJim]

JEEZ LawJolla, you need to be more thorough when making unpaid comments on a message board. I expect to see you discuss all points of legal address, even if it's not relevant to the conversation. You can add non-significant references to appendix B. For example, what does maritime law say about this specific situation? For each statement explain why it is or isn't relevant. Only citations made using the 19th edition of Bluebook will be accepted.

Also no mention of relevant bird law! smh

 

[Macbookprodude]

Protecting both developers and customers against blatant copyright infringement should fall onto Apple, just as Google is required to keep YouTube clean of unauthorised copies of videos and music.

YouTube clean ?? Talk about the most corrupt company and ones who suppress things ? YouTube and Google are all but unauthorized.

 

[kc9hzn]

YouTube clean ?? Talk about the most corrupt company and ones who suppress things ? YouTube and Google are all but unauthorized.

And yet, legitimate fair use totally gets the ContentID hammer wielded against it. And the ContentID system gets thoroughly abused. Look up old TV show theme songs on YouTube, and you’ll very likely see them content matched to a French knockoff album of TV theme songs instead of the original performers. So it’s really the worst of all possible worlds when it comes to copyright on YouTube.