MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Record label EMI is suing the developers of music game Def Jam Rapstar in an $8m lawsuit for allegedly not obtaining song rights. EMI is seeking damages from the ‘theft of songs’ from artists like Kanye West, DMX and Lil Wayne, which were used in the game without permission, claims …
Read More »Activision wins first round in West/Zampella lawsuit
One of the two fraud charges levelled at Activision by former employees and Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vincent Zampella has been dismissed by a US court. The remarkable story of the corporate fallout between Activision and the development pair began in March 2010 when it was revealed that …
Read More »BT and TalkTalk lose three strikes appeal
The Digital Economy Act anti file-sharing legislation received a boost as the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier High Court ruling that backed the DEA. British ISPs BT and TalkTalk had brought the appeal as the firm’s argued against controversial measures in the act that would force ISPs to send …
Read More »Comet fights back in Microsoft dispute
Retailer Comet has pledged to fight its corner in the dispute with Microsoft over the manufacturing of 94k Windows recovery discs. Yesterday MCV reported that Microsoft was suing Comet for producing what it claimed were thousands of counterfeit Windows CDs” that it then supplied to unsuspecting customers in the UK”. …
Read More »Microsoft and Datel settle Xbox 360 lawsuits
Microsoft and accessory manufacturer Datel have settled their Xbox 360 patent infringement and antitrust cases against each other. Staffordshire-based Datel originally took Microsoft to court in November 2009 after claiming a 360 dashboard update was issued to block certain Datel accessories from working, reports Bloomberg. These included Datel’s Max Memory …
Read More »THQ wins Ubisoft dev poaching case
The Quebec Court of Appeal has overturned a Ubisoft injunction against THQ which sought to block the latter from soliciting staff from the French publisher. Ubisoft was granted the injunction in March this year thatprohibited THQ from approaching staff at Ubisoft, as employees at the publisher had a ‘non compete …
Read More »Zynga settles CityVille copyright lawsuit
Social games giant Zynga has ended its legal action on Brazilian games firm Vostu for alleged copyright infringement. Zynga took legal action on Vostu in June for ‘infringement of its creative works’ including titles such as Zynga’s popular Facebook game CityVille. Now Vostu has agreed to pay a fee to …
Read More »EA sued over Battlefield 1943 snub
A class action lawsuit has been filed against publisher EA over its failure to include a free version of digital shooter Battlefield 1943 with the PS3 version of Battlefield 3. Having announced the proposed freebie earlier this year, the omission was only revealed after the game had been released in …
Read More »Mojang and Bethesda heading for courts
Mojang has been summoned to court to settle a trademark dispute with Bethesda, the Swedish studio’s founder has said. The publisher, which is also currently suing Interplay, claims it has first right to use the ‘scrolls’ term with entertainment products. Mojang, the developer of PC sensation Minecraft, is currently building …
Read More »Now Viacom sues former Harmonix shareholders
Viacom is taking ex-shareholders of Rock Band developer Harmonix to court, following a lawsuit filed against the firm itself last year. The former parent company of Harmonix and owner of MTV claims that previous Harmonix shareholders owe it over $131m, reports Gamasutra. Viacom claims this is a refund” of the …
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