A Day of Settling - Capcom Wins Dead Rising Lawsuit and THQ Drops Suit Against Activision Over Box Art

Two Suits Concluded Today:

Capcom vs. MKR Productions (Dawn of the Dead guys) - The judge found that a story of zombies invading a town and someone trying to stop them is not protectable. Despite MKR's arguments that there were unmistakable similarities such as a fight scene in a mall, a helicopter ride, and zombies in plaid, the judge sided with Capcom. Another MKR's argument was that the products both contained social commentary about sensationalist media. The judge disagreed, leveling Dead Rising to a pure action experience with no social commentary - good for the suit, bad for the ego. The conclusion of the suit opened the door for Dead Rising 2: Already in Development.

Dawn of the Dead: The Lawsuit

THQ vs. Activision - The Baja Box Art Case - Activision agreed to change the box art in a settlement which will dismiss the case with prejudice. Why didn't Activision just do that the first time THW asked them to...it worked out well for me, the lawyer (well, not me, exactly, you know what I mean).

Baja Suit Goes Baja

Brush that dirt off your shoulders video game legal world.

EA Faces New SecuROM Class Action Suits

Continuing the EA SecuROM debacle, not one, but two new class action lawsuits have been filed. The first involves EA's inclusion of its ultra-invasive, questionably effective, SecuROM technology with the free Spore Creature Creator software. Despite there being no risk of piracy, EA included it anyway. The second class action suit involves an avid Sims player who after installing Sims Bon Voyage could no longer access certain files on her computer. Both cases were filed in the Northern District of California and both plaintiffs are represented by the same law firm. An earlier suit was filed in September regarding the SecuROM in Spore.

Sec-Two-Wrong

If EA wasn't listening before, they should be now...