Earlier this week, we reported of Ubisoft's lawsuit against Google and Apple for hosting an alleged ripoff of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege on their online stores. The game, Area F2, was developed by Ejoy.com which apparently did not want to go further with the potential legal actions awaiting, as the company announced the termination of its game.

Effective as from 20 May 2020 at 12:00 PM, Area F2's services and online events were terminated and has been pulled from the Google Play Store and Apple Store. The company is also refunding players who made in-app purchases.

The game's developers did not directly address the conflict with Ubisoft, but rather attributed the shut down to "carrying out improvements to Area F2 in order to deliver a better experience to players". This means that Area F2 might still resurface in a new, less Rainbow Six: Siege-y look later on.

SOURCE

 

[LightBeam]

It'll come back with the exact same form, just like the other Overwatch rip-off does, it's even available on the playstore now but nobody cares cuz it's from a weird taiwanese or singaporean company that nobody heard about. It really feels like copycats around there are just like fangames : you take one down, you are sure it will come back under another title, published by someone nobody knows

 

[Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee]

It wasn't a clone, it was a forgery. A theft.

This is good news.

 

[Xzi]

Are Google or Apple likely to be on the hook for much?

I'm not sure what the typical payout would be for something like this, but even if it's just a couple thousand they're sure to be bitter about it. Especially if they have to spend even more on legal fees.

That said, Ejoy is owned by Alibaba, so you know they have enough in reserve to pay virtually any amount.

It was taken down after they were made of the potential violation.

I'm not sure of your point here, it would seem a little weird for them to take it down before they had been made aware of a violation.

Oh c'mon man, they knew their game was a copy-paste job from the beginning. Think of it this way: it's like selling Nintendo ROMs, and then returning the money to "customers" after Nintendo has already begun the process of suing you. They aren't just going to drop the case, at best you'll maybe influence them to take it a little easier on you.

There are very few Ubisoft games I actually care for, but this case is about as cut and dry as it gets, so you're putting me in the awkward position of having to defend their actions here. Hopefully this sets precedent for more lawsuits against Chinese plagiarizers in the future. They've considered themselves de facto immune from such legal actions for far too long now.

 

[smf]

Oh c'mon man, they knew their game was a copy-paste job from the beginning. Think of it this way: it's like selling Nintendo ROMs, and then returning the money to "customers" after Nintendo has already begun the process of suing you.

No, this is nothing like selling nintendo roms. There is a difference between making an exact duplicate of a piece of software and looking at it and deciding to make something that looks the same.

The legal implication of that is slightly trickier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockbuster It doesn't matter how close it looks, it then comes down to whether anything copyright-able was copied. You can't just turn up in court saying "WHA WHA WHA, THIS IS SO UNFAIR, GIVE ME $$$ BECAUSE I'M SAD".

I've not seen anywhere that any assets or source code were directly lifted, but if they were then who is to say who knew that was happening? I've certainly seen people paid to create something, who then secretly ripped off someone elses work to collect a pay check.

They also weren't intending to deceive people into thinking this was the same game, so I will look at the court case with interest.

I suspect the judge might look very confused why a game that isn't trying to rely on a trademark and looks very similar to 100's of other games is in court, when it's no longer on sale and customers have been refunded.

It's like suing your neighbor for playing their music too loud after they've moved away.

You should encourage Cadillac to sue every other car manufacturer for copying and pasting the driver control layout of the 1916 type 53.

 

[Xzi]

There is a difference between making an exact duplicate of a piece of software and looking at it and deciding to make something that looks the same.

Yeah there is, and nine times out of ten when there's a Chinese mobile developer involved, it's the former. "The ends justify the means" is unfortunately a very prevalent belief in their culture, and gaming in most forms was banned in China until relatively recently. So rather than play catch-up with the rest of the world where experience in game development is concerned, too many Chinese developers choose to take a shortcut through plagiarism-ville. Which is really sad because they could be contributing some uniquely awesome concepts to gaming instead.

I've not seen anywhere that any assets or source code were directly lifted

If that were true then they would've gone about business as usual, comfortable in the knowledge that they have a strong case as the defendant. Immediately taking down the game and refunding all their customers after being sued shows that they knew they were profiting from Ubisoft's intellectual property, and that they're hoping to negotiate a plea deal.

 

[smf]

If that were true then they would've gone about business as usual, comfortable in the knowledge that they have a strong case as the defendant.

Ubisoft also said in the complaint that Area F2 had been downloaded more than a million times. In addition, the company alleged that developer Ejoy, owned by Alibaba, “generated tens of thousands of dollars in revenue” from the game.

Or the cost of defending the case is more than the amount of money they'd made already. That is more important than whether you are right or not.

It would only take one lazy employee passing off someone elses work to sink their defense in court and finding that out after two years of expensive litigation would do them no good, you might want to lend them your mind reading helmet so they can test all of their employees.

I'm pretty sure google and apple have no idea what every employee of the developers did either.

It will certainly be entertaining if Ubisoft pursue the court case.

 

[Xzi]

Or the cost of defending the case is more than the amount of money they'd made already.

That's ultimately not a factor when you're owned by Alibaba. They could easily take the small hit now and let the game generate revenue over the long-term to make up for it.

It would only take one lazy employee passing off someone elses work to sink their defense

I have no idea why you're so attached to this ridiculous argument. No individual employee has this much power in any given company. Everything gets approved by management and/or executives before it reaches the customer. You might as well be suggesting they plead insanity, that has a much higher chance of success.

It will certainly be entertaining if Ubisoft pursue the court case.

There's certainly nothing suggesting they're prepared to drop the case, and if anything Ejoy's actions following the news of a lawsuit has just made their case even stronger. One way or another Ubisoft will be receiving compensation out of this whole ordeal, regardless of whether the case sees its day in court or they settle on a plea deal.

 

[smf]

and if anything Ejoy's actions following the news of a lawsuit has just made their case even stronger.

No, it hasn't. Ubisoft can either prove a case or they can't.

One way or another Ubisoft will be receiving compensation out of this whole ordeal, regardless of whether the case sees its day in court or they settle on a plea deal.

Plea deal? You do know this isn't a criminal case?

It will either end with an undisclosed out of court settlement, the case will be thrown out or ubisoft will be awarded damages.

Cases like this often get thrown out & because of ejoy's actions it's made it more likely.

 

[Xzi]

No, it hasn't. Ubisoft can either prove a case or they can't.

And they can. Every aspect of the game is copied.

Plea deal? You do know this isn't a criminal case?

It will either end with an undisclosed out of court settlement, the case will be thrown out or ubisoft will be awarded damages.

Right, settlement is the term I was looking for.

Cases like this often get thrown out & because of ejoy's actions it's made it more likely.

I'm tempted to just ignore this, because the former is anecdotal at best and I know you can't substantiate the latter. Why you're so dead set on letting Chinese plagiarizers continue to get away with IP theft I'll never understand.

 

[smf]

And they can. Every aspect of the game is copied.

Not all aspects are copyrightable.

Right, settlement is the term I was looking for.

A normal settlement would be to take the game off sale and pay the court fees, as they wouldn't need to be paid if the game was taken off sale before court.

The game has been taken off sale already, they have in effect settled.

I'm tempted to just ignore this, because the former is anecdotal at best and I know you can't substantiate the latter.

Your argument is no better.

Why you're so dead set on letting Chinese plagiarizers continue to get away with IP theft I'll never understand.

I'm not prepared to delude myself about reality just to make myself feel better for UbiSoft. Corporate civil cases aren't the same as corporate criminal cases as they don't have the weight and money of the state behind them (and corporate criminal cases are different to individuals in court). Look and feel court cases are notoriously unreliable too.

Why do you feel the need to point out the nationality of the plagarizers? That seems a bit racist, is that your motivation for wanting them to be punished?

UbiSoft make similar mistakes too.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...r-over-assassins-creed-copyright-infringement

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-30-author-drops-assassins-creed-copyright-lawsuit

https://venturebeat.com/2012/05/30/...t-against-ubisoft-over-assassins-creed-story/

So maybe you think UbiSoft should have been shut down back then too? Or aren't they Chinese enough?

 

[FAST6191]

So a reading from a copyright lawyer on the case/filing, and covers general ideas of the law that might apply too as it generally works (what is copyrightable within a work, what sorts of tests are used in the real world, some real life examples of things and more besides)


Short version of that. Ubisoft does not have a great case if that filing is what we have to go by (which in turn is what the courts have to go by). Whether it would be dismissed outright I don't know but I would not bet against it, especially if they are not given leave to file additional evidence of copying/infringement.
I did not catch in that why Google and Apple got pinged. He speculated if they failed to do their job under the DMCA notifications procedure which I would doubt they would at some level, and I am not sure they have any duty to make a judgement on this game.
To add to it. I would like to note orange and blue (or orange and teal if we are being fancy) are considered complementary colours, indeed one of the main examples in popular use, which every design student, art student and the like that learned the first thing about colour theory will tell you. on film posters but does make the case, and https://www.designmantic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Color-Theory-Infographic.jpg because it is cool and everybody should know a bit of colour theory. That said it is not in the ejoy game/screens shown in the court document so that is probably immaterial.

I thought at first this might be a case of ripped or recreated copyrightable assets, seems not though and at least in what Ubisoft presented in their document. If someone has a further analysis on something that might actually have been copied I am interested to hear about it, however I will note that if you are going to go to court then you do generally want to do a good job first time. In the video above, and for my purposes as well, I would be interested to see what the fictional equivalents might be between the games as those stand a better chance of rising to the level of infringement (though even then from what I saw in that I have a long list of real world equivalents and works of fiction featuring them).
It is a shameless attempt by ejoy to try to get in on the action? Oh yeah. Does it reach the level of copyright infringement? Not from what Ubisoft presented there, and if there is then it is absolutely minimal and does not speak at the core of the gameplay. To that end Ubisoft are probably the bad guys here.

Now the real world weapons it lists in the game might be troubled if the weapon manufacturers themselves cared to file suit (assuming ejoy did not get permissions for such a thing, which I would not put any money on happening but I have been surprised in the past) but that is a different matter.