Quick Jump Daily Digest
Thank you for your interest in the Quick Jump Daily Digest. Get notified of all new content on QJ in our free Daily Digest. To subscribe, enter your email address below and click the subscribe button.
Rockstar hurdles another legal obstacle |
Listed in: News Tags: Hot Coffee mod, Los Angeles, Rockstar, Rockstar Games, Trademark
Ó
Like what our Gramps used to say, "When you're way up, there's nowhere to go but down; and those below have a knack for aiming at those who are on top." Such is the case with Rockstar. After achieving unprecedented success with its Grand Theft Auto franchise, it has been receiving blows from all directions in the form of lawsuits. It's sometimes hard to imagine how they still find time to develop games with all these distractions.
Well, Rockstar may have just gotten a huge break as a US district judge ruled on their favor regarding the complaint filed by a Los Angeles strip club. The complaint says that Rockstar Games breached copyright by designing a similar-looking virtual strip club for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
April of last year, The Play Pen club owner E.S.S. Entertainment filed a lawsuit against GTA creator Rockstar. The suit accused the said game developers of trademark infringement; a strip club in the game carried the name The Pig Pen and allegedly has a similar logo, awning, and 'Totally nude' advertising slogan.
While Rockstar admitted that their artist produced most of the game scenes inspired with photographs of actual spots on Los Angeles, including the Play Pen, they argued that they "changed the names, building designs and overall look and feel of the locations... To make them fit the virtual, cartoon-style world of San Andreas and the series' irreverent tone." To further cement their defense, Rockstar likened their situation with that of MCA Records who also got the "not guilty" verdict after being accused of the same violation with the song Barbie Girl. They got cleared with the judge saying trademark rights "do not entitle the owner to quash an unauthorised use of the mark by another who is communicating ideas or expressing points of view."
After reviewing all the evidences, Judge Margaret Morrow sided with Rockstar ruling that their "use of the Play Pen trade dress and trademark bears some artistic relevance to the game, and does not explicitly mislead consumers as to the source or content of the game."
That could finally settle the issues surrounding GTA: San Andreas, especially that it came after the ruling by FTC over the Hot Coffee scandal. Well Rockstar may have just weathered a storm but things aren't likely to stay this good for long with the controversy magnet company set to release another game - the alleged violent, school-based Bully, before the end of the year. Let the stone hurling begin.
Via Game Industry
| This story sucks? This story rocks! |
|
|
Comments
Reply
Reply
Reply
i recall lots of london landmarks in the getaway for ps2
do we see the anyone sueing!!
this is proberly a blatant attempt of raking in some cash from the strip club owner.
or proberly because his joint sucks and rockstars vr world makes his club look like s**t. lol
Reply
Reply
Reply
First the old GTA, there was a problem with it being too violent to cops, etc..
Then San Andreas for the hot coffee mod
And isnt it weird that a GTA game is responsible for the save game handling that provides us with our psp downgrading.
Reply
Reply
how far will this ***** go...
Reply
Reply
"a SIMILAR-LOOKING virtual strip club"
LG should sue samsung for mamking a similar-looking TV and phone.
imation should sue fujifilm for making similar-looking CD-Rs.
Nintendo should sue microsoft for putting A, B, X, and Y buttons on their game controllers cuz they are similar-looking.
Im so glad R* won this one.
Reply
Reply
Plus rockstar should'v just said "is suppose to be couincidence" I remember... their disclaimer in the begining of the game saying if anything's similar or same to the real world or real celeb or real whatever, is pure couincidential? right?
also the judge and the jury must be too old to think about " hey all the people out there are jealous of rockstar's success... and just wanna suck their money".
You know what? this world sucks... so many people become unfair out of greed...
Reply
Reply
Reply
firstly, rockstar hired MAX CLIFFORD to do their PR (at least for some of their games) and that's not too wise if you're thinking of playing it safe. max clifford's mantra is 'any publicity is good publicity'.
secondly, the hot coffee thing... why did they code that lot into the game? they must have known that if that made it public it would cause trouble.
the fact is rockstar know their games are going to cause controversy, they know that games like manhunt will put people's back up... ok being sued for the 'pig pen' too blatantly ripping off the 'play pen' is a touch unlucky, as many games have totally ripped on other stuff without a word being said... and in that i concede it's simply rockstar's celebrity status which has made it such a target...
personally i do find this stupid trend to sue anyone and anything is creating more problems than it solves... even in the uk, there's all these stupid 'injury lawyers for you' type companie who advertise that they can win any accident claim and get some money for people. it actually got to the extent that the government told them off and said 'look we'll simply pass a law saying you're not allowed to sue for this kind of thing if you keep it up...' so they did tone it down a bit.
i'm glad rockstar got away with it, what does it say for our freedom and our rights to say what we want if such a small thing is punished? people should grow some spines, there has been so much hate and persecution throughout history and now that we're finally getting somewhere (in most cases the divides are shrinking) we don't want to go all 'nanny state'...
Reply
People even attack the weak, this prove that human are indeed evil. Just what I believe.
Reply
Reply
Grow up US
Reply
Reply
It's as simple as that. People, don't deny it, all of their games' (aside from Table Tennis) SELLING POINT is the ability to do contraversial things.
There may be twisted things in PREY. There may be messed up things in Silent Hill. But those games have those things for one reason: Because they evoke fear. After all, they ARE in the "horror" genre.
Rockstar, however, allows you to do these things simply because you can. I'd go as far as to say that they include these things because they might grant you PLEASURE in doing such twisted things, and I say that because it's not difficult to get away with a crime like murder in GTA. Kill a person, kill the pursuing cops, let the hubbub die down, repeat. Not at all like real life.
Remaining top not only requires that you have the skill to get there, but also the ability to defend that position. Rockstar had better be prepared for more to come, if they wish to expand in the "contraversial games" category.
Reply
Reply