3 ms·

I don't know about that, Epic is historically a PC-centric developer. However, the legal question of having a monopoly on publishing for a game console has bee

I don't know about that, Epic is historically a PC-centric developer. However, the legal question of having a monopoly on publishing for a game console has been settled ages ago, and the platform owners won.

gpm 6y ago
> However, the legal question of having a monopoly on publishing for a game console has been settled ages ago, and the platform owners won. I don't believe it has, and I don't believe they do. The only lawsuit of this nature that I'm aware of is Atari v. Nintendo [1]. All that lawsuit established was that - It isn't fair use to violate copyright law in the process of bypassing mechanisms used to maintain the monopoly - While it might be copyright misuse to create those mechanisms establishing a monopoly in the first place (undecided), the court isn't going to grant you a win when you got in the position you did by lying to the government to steal code. Notably (as far as I can tell) it established nothing whatsoever about antitrust law, which is what is at issue in this case and presumably what would be at issue in a similar case related to consoles. Is there another case you are thinking of? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Games_Corp._v._Nintendo_of_America_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Games_Corp._v._Nintendo_....
- ac29 6y ago
  Sega v Accolade also seems relevant here, and held that reverse engineering to create unlicensed Sega Genesis games was fair use and thus permissible (though in a later settlement, Accolade did become a licensed developer).
- gridlockd 6y ago
  Antitrust violations were part of the suit brought against Nintendo, but the court basically ignored those in the ruling. Here's a legal analysis that predates the ruling: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/489/ https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/489/ It outlines the requirements for a successful antitrust case, particularly that simply having a monopoly is not enough.

gpm 6y ago

> However, the legal question of having a monopoly on publishing for a game console has been settled ages ago, and the platform owners won. I don't believe it has, and I don't believe they do. The only lawsuit of this nature that I'm aware of is Atari v. Nintendo [1]. All that lawsuit established was that - It isn't fair use to violate copyright law in the process of bypassing mechanisms used to maintain the monopoly - While it might be copyright misuse to create those mechanisms establishing a monopoly in the first place (undecided), the court isn't going to grant you a win when you got in the position you did by lying to the government to steal code. Notably (as far as I can tell) it established nothing whatsoever about antitrust law, which is what is at issue in this case and presumably what would be at issue in a similar case related to consoles. Is there another case you are thinking of? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Games_Corp._v._Nintendo_of_America_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Games_Corp._v._Nintendo_....

ac29 6y ago
Sega v Accolade also seems relevant here, and held that reverse engineering to create unlicensed Sega Genesis games was fair use and thus permissible (though in a later settlement, Accolade did become a licensed developer).
gridlockd 6y ago
Antitrust violations were part of the suit brought against Nintendo, but the court basically ignored those in the ruling. Here's a legal analysis that predates the ruling: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/489/ https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/489/ It outlines the requirements for a successful antitrust case, particularly that simply having a monopoly is not enough.