There's plenty of legal speak in the letter to Dark And Darker Gold bolster Ironmace's position, including case law citations, code and asset comparison, and even a Law and Order-esque "fruit of the poisonous tree" reference (a theory which copyright law apparently doesn't recognize).
I'm not a lawyer, but taken altogether it certainly looks convincing. Even more compelling from a layperson's standpoint, though, are some hard truths Ironmace's lawyer drops about the fantasy genre and videogames in general.
"A medieval-style fantasy dungeon crawler has a limited universe of plausible assets from which one may reasonably choose," the letter states, like a dagger to my heart.
"There’s a reason nearly every game that has ever explored this genre features reanimated skeletons, trolls, spiders, and the other usual dungeon denizens. There is nothing remarkable about game designers choosing some of the same scènes à faire assets in constructing such a game."
(Scènes à faire is a term used to describe a scene in a creative work that is almost obligatory because of its genre—like, for instance, a fireball spell in a fantasy videogame. It's also a principle in US copyright law that exempts those elements from copyright protection.)
"Given the absence of any colorable copyright infringement claim, Nexon’s Takedown Notice contains knowing and material misrepresentations that Dark and Darker infringed Nexon’s copyright interests in cheap Dark And Darker Gold violation of 17 U.S.C. § 512," the letter states.
I'm not a lawyer, but taken altogether it certainly looks convincing. Even more compelling from a layperson's standpoint, though, are some hard truths Ironmace's lawyer drops about the fantasy genre and videogames in general.
"A medieval-style fantasy dungeon crawler has a limited universe of plausible assets from which one may reasonably choose," the letter states, like a dagger to my heart.
"There’s a reason nearly every game that has ever explored this genre features reanimated skeletons, trolls, spiders, and the other usual dungeon denizens. There is nothing remarkable about game designers choosing some of the same scènes à faire assets in constructing such a game."
(Scènes à faire is a term used to describe a scene in a creative work that is almost obligatory because of its genre—like, for instance, a fireball spell in a fantasy videogame. It's also a principle in US copyright law that exempts those elements from copyright protection.)
"Given the absence of any colorable copyright infringement claim, Nexon’s Takedown Notice contains knowing and material misrepresentations that Dark and Darker infringed Nexon’s copyright interests in cheap Dark And Darker Gold violation of 17 U.S.C. § 512," the letter states.
Comments (0)