Infringement – MMO Fallout

Today’s story covers Jonathan Slabaugh, aka Jao, head of Beawesome Games and developer of the bestselling mediocre asset flip also known as Day of Dragons. We’ve spoken briefly about Day of Dragons in the past, from the company’s unethical behavior in hardcoding bans of Youtube critics causing their games to crash upon startup. Conversation surrounding Day of Dragons has prompted an almost fanatical response from some of Beawesome’s community base with critics being harassed off of social media and one Youtuber receiving death threats for no longer supporting the game.

But it looks like Jonathan has finally struck a fatal cord in his attempt to silence critics, as Youtuber SidAlpha posted to Twitter that he will be contacting an attorney in response to a failed attempt to copyright strike a video by Beawesome Games. The Tweet contains a snapshot of an email from Youtube confirming that a video posted by Sid had received a copyright infringement notice, but that Youtube would not be taking any action under the belief that the video content constitutes fair use. The copyright notice attempts to claim that a video showing the software interface constitutes copyright infringement.

MMO Fallout has had our own encounters with the sycophantic subset of Day of Dragons fans.

In Plain English: Epic Takes On Counterfeiters

Here’s a quick tip on counterfeiting merchandise from one of the most litigious companies in the gaming industry: Don’t.

Epic Games is back in court, because the company refuses to let its lawyers have an easy week. This time around, the company isn’t going after Fortnite cheat distributors. On April 25, 2019, Epic filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois for the sale of products in connection with the registered trademark of Fortnite. The lawsuit contends that the defendants are going to great lengths to hide the extent of their operations and are selling inferior quality products designed to look like authorized merchandise.

Who are the defendants? Good question. Epic lists them as individuals and businesses residing in China and other foreign jurisdictions.

Epic seeks relief on charges of counterfeiting and trademark infringement, false designation of origin, violation of the Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and has demanded an enjoinment from using the Fortnite brand, passing off counterfeit products as genuine, that all profits gained through the counterfeiting operation be handed to Epic or that statutory damages of $2 million USD for each use of the Fortnite trademark be awarded. They also seek reasonable attorney fees and any further damages the court might award.

Epic’s attorneys are meeting with the court today (April 30) to discuss a motion for temporary transfer of defendant’s domain names, temporary asset restraint (freezing assets), expedited discovery, service of process by email, among other motions.

MMO Fallout could not ascertain the identities of the defendants, as those documents have been sealed by the court, possibly to prevent potential defendants from transferring assets in anticipation of a restraint. Similarly, there are no exhibits of such merchandise available at this time for potentially the same reason.

As always, the court dockets have been provided at our expense to you, the reader, at the Google Drive linked below.

Source: Google Drive

[Column] PUBG’s Ridiculous Ownership Claim on the Frying Pan

PUBG Corp has finally decided to pull up its britches and sue NetEase for copying Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, a move that will certainly make for some monumental court precedent. While I do have coverage coming for this 155 page complaint once I get done reading it, one bit that caught my eye was on PUBG Corp’s list of concepts it claims copyright ownership of, the frying pan as a weapon.

Especially the part where PUBG Corp claims that ‘previous shooter games did not include the use of a frying pan.’

“One very beloved aspect of creative expression in BATTLEGROUNDS is the game’s iconic frying pan. Previous shooter games did not include the use of a frying pan… When
so equipped, as a purely artistic and creative expression injecting humor into the game, the frying pan is the only indestructible armor in the game (i.e., armor that can absorb infinite hit points without deteriorating), providing complete protection against projectiles aimed at a character’s posterior. “

Right, except the frying pan has been a comedic weapon in literature popular media for decades, if not longer, likely longer than many of the PUBG Corp employees have been alive. If you want to keep the conversation strictly limited to video games, the frying pan as a humorous weapon has become iconic as far back as 1996 with Princess Peach and the release of Super Mario RPG but can be found in games like Earthbound (1994), Fable (2004), and Conker’s Bad Fur Day (2001). Dead Rising had a frying pan weapon and Dead Rising 2 even utilized the mechanic of having said frying pan block bullets.

Left 4 Dead 2 (2009) had a frying pan as arguably its most powerful melee weapon, which was then transplanted to Team Fortress 2 in 2010 with the sound effect of a successful hit meant to be both humiliating for the player on the receiving end and humorous for the game as a whole.

Full coverage of the lawsuit is on its way, but this is just one of a large number of concepts that PUBG Corp is claiming copyright ownership of that it had veritably no hand in creating, including the phrase “winner winner chicken dinner,” and the concept of starting with nothing and building up an arsenal, or virtually every RPG since the 80’s as well as the Unreal Tournament games, to name two examples.

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