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Interesting that this appears to be about copying specific game mechanics, not something like game assets or code. Based on the screenshots they provide on pag

Interesting that this appears to be about copying specific game mechanics, not something like game assets or code. Based on the screenshots they provide on page 43+ it does look like Free Fire is pretty clearly aping PUBG's aesthetic and mechanics, but I'm not sure that is copyright infringement. https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/dwvkrkjdlpm/IP%20PUBG%20COPYRIGHT%20complaint-min.pdf https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/dwvkrkjdlpm/... Interested to see where this goes.

ksec 5y ago
Yes, this is different than bringing other Battle Royale like games to court. It clearly is a rip off. And Google and Apple clearly benefited from it. And this is interesting because Apple likes to compare it's App Store and Games Distribution to console. ( To the point they included PS5 and Xbox as direct competitor in their recent quarterly report ) Which is only true on the surface, but in reality console maker have much stricter guidelines in releasing games where something like this wouldn't have happened.
- fastball 5y ago
  Being a "rip off" is not disallowed by our legal system though.
  - dathinab 5y ago
    It can be illegal depending on some factors. Like there are things like design patents or even "normal" parents which might be violated. Some countries also have laws which make a rip off by itself illegal if it's too similar (oversimplified).
    - nekcihc 5y ago
      None of that applies to software - they are not Gucci bags.
      - dathinab 5y ago
        Why shouldn't it apply to software? I mean it would be nice if it doesn't. But as far as I know there is nothing explicitly excluding software from this laws.
        nekcihc 5y ago
        As far as I know, you can write your own poetry. The way how you would describe a love or chair, does not make you owner of those abstract or real things. Software code here is only a language of that poetry. >>I mean it would be nice if it doesn't. If we were applying medieval guild based rules to software development, there would be no evolution of software at all. There would be no mobile phones(maybe one - not series, but one phone) and personal computers - and also no PUBG, which like all the successful software has borrowed ideas from other software. With such draconian rules, there would be no market for those things, that we have now. Isn't it nice - you can make your own web browser, that does not differ that much from others, or OS, or a game...
        dathinab 5y ago
        > evolution of software at all If we just enforce existing US patent law wrt. software related things, then not only would there be no evolution. There would be an apocalyptic collapse of the whole software industry, and beyond. The question is often less if we have sane laws but more how they are used/enforced. In case of software related patents they often aren't. But often aren't doesn't mean they never are, we just have been lucky until now as no one was stupid enough to force it... And copyright law is I think even more messed up then patent law... so I don't think your argument holds.
vlunkr 5y ago
They didn't directly rip assets, but based on those screenshots, they obviously mimicked tons of assets. Armor, weapons (the frying pan, really?), structures, and even some level design. That, combined with the fact that the design of the game was identical seems like a pretty good case to me. Another thing that will make the case interesting is that mobile games like this are like chameleons. If you look up free fire now, it looks more like Fortnite.
- duskwuff 5y ago
  > (the frying pan, really?) Hardly original to PUBG. Valve had a frying pan in Team Fortress 2 in 2010, long before PUBG even existed: https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Frying_Pan https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Frying_Pan
- Supermancho 5y ago
  > That, combined with the fact that the design of the game was identical seems like a pretty good case to me. Clones are common for a reason. Heroes of Newerth, 12-odd years ago, was a functional copy of DotA, with identical items; eg boots, bottle, etc. A more recent Apple action, where they are taking Wordle clones down, isn't an indication that there's a copyright violation. This is just the Apple walled garden trying to prop up winners for their own Black Mirror-style ends (30% cut is easier from a single vendor and everyone gets to participate in the news story). You can mimic as much as you want because game design is not copyrightable. Your game is basically the same, does not make a good case. You want to point to specific assets, art, and other copyrighted IP.
jcranmer 5y ago
Not a copyright lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt: One of the core limitations on copyright is the idea-expression divide. Copyright does not--cannot--protect an idea, only the expression of the idea. (There are other limitations on what expressions themselves can be protected, but if it's not even an expression, you're hosed). Of course, this itself isn't a clear-cut and easy divide, and is endless wishy-washy. So what allegedly copyrighted material has been lifted here? Well... as you dig into it, it's really a stretch. The argument is that PUBG copyrighted using a military-style helmet in a shooter game. No, seriously, ¶57 is arguing that using a particular "Russian special forces or 'spetsnaz'-style helmet" is a copyrighted element. ¶59 ups the insanity by arguing that using clothing is copyrighted. Not specific kinds of clothing, just regular streetware in general. Again and again, most of their claims on the aesthetic being copyrighted boil down, essentially, to "we copyrighted using military-style equipment, casual streetware, and a vaguely war-torn, somewhat austere Eastern European-ish environment as the setting for a shooter game." Which is not copyrightable for the even more basic fact that this predates PUBG by a long-shot. The two strongest copyright claims to me are a) the use of the frying pan and b) "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner". The first claim itself is pretty weak, but it's one of the strongest by simple virtue of its actual rarity in games, so PUBG may have a viable claim to have actually originated it. And the second claim is weak because I'm not sure it's actually infringed--the claimed infringement (¶101) is that the win screen has a cooked chicken on it, not the actual phrase. So the basic summary I have is that, while Free Fire is definitely a rip-off of PUBG, PUBG's aesthetic itself is so generic that it's not really copyright infringement.
- p1necone 5y ago
  The Winner Winner Chicken Dinner thing wasn't even invented by PUBG, that's been a common phrase (how common depends on the country) since before /video games/ existed, let alone PUBG specifically.
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
  I am also not an american copyright lawyer, is that "dissecting the details, ignoring the grand scale" how american IP laws for video games work? Concerning #57 and #59 the chapter is about what PUBG is, not about what is copied or copyrighted. You are wrong when you say they claim "using clothing is copyrighted" they do not make that claim at all. That chapter in the document describes in detail the artistic choices Krafton made in their expression of a battle royal last man standing free for all deathmatch arena ego shooter that is PUBG. In the next chapter (#78+) they argue that Garena is copying the overall look, feel, and audiovisual style, gameplay, maps, and many detailed design choices. They don't even pick up on that specific detail of clothing again. While i completely agree with you that they did not in fact come up with the artistic choice of clothing in mixed civilian and military gear, they directly lifted it from DayZ, which took it from the generic post-apocalyptic setting, the point of these details is to show that Garena is infringing by creating an almost identical expression of the idea, instead of creating a distinct expression of their own. It seems to me that the whole thing is not about sueing them over details like the level3 helmet looking almost identical to the one from the PUBG box art and marketing material. Yes Krafton claims the rendering of that helmet is a copyrightable piece of visual art in #57, but they do not claim that this piece of art was copied in #94, they claim that Garena used the same three types of helmets (motorad, military, spetsnaz) as their level 1,2,3 gear as part of their overall attempt to copy the whole game down to the details. The document seems less like a list of small infringements and more like list of examples of one big infringement. The core claim is that Garena is intentionally making an identical game. (again, not a lawyer)

ksec 5y ago

Yes, this is different than bringing other Battle Royale like games to court. It clearly is a rip off. And Google and Apple clearly benefited from it. And this is interesting because Apple likes to compare it's App Store and Games Distribution to console. ( To the point they included PS5 and Xbox as direct competitor in their recent quarterly report ) Which is only true on the surface, but in reality console maker have much stricter guidelines in releasing games where something like this wouldn't have happened.

fastball 5y ago
Being a "rip off" is not disallowed by our legal system though.
- dathinab 5y ago
  It can be illegal depending on some factors. Like there are things like design patents or even "normal" parents which might be violated. Some countries also have laws which make a rip off by itself illegal if it's too similar (oversimplified).
  - nekcihc 5y ago
    None of that applies to software - they are not Gucci bags.
    - dathinab 5y ago
      Why shouldn't it apply to software? I mean it would be nice if it doesn't. But as far as I know there is nothing explicitly excluding software from this laws.
      - nekcihc 5y ago
        As far as I know, you can write your own poetry. The way how you would describe a love or chair, does not make you owner of those abstract or real things. Software code here is only a language of that poetry. >>I mean it would be nice if it doesn't. If we were applying medieval guild based rules to software development, there would be no evolution of software at all. There would be no mobile phones(maybe one - not series, but one phone) and personal computers - and also no PUBG, which like all the successful software has borrowed ideas from other software. With such draconian rules, there would be no market for those things, that we have now. Isn't it nice - you can make your own web browser, that does not differ that much from others, or OS, or a game...
        dathinab 5y ago
        > evolution of software at all If we just enforce existing US patent law wrt. software related things, then not only would there be no evolution. There would be an apocalyptic collapse of the whole software industry, and beyond. The question is often less if we have sane laws but more how they are used/enforced. In case of software related patents they often aren't. But often aren't doesn't mean they never are, we just have been lucky until now as no one was stupid enough to force it... And copyright law is I think even more messed up then patent law... so I don't think your argument holds.

vlunkr 5y ago

They didn't directly rip assets, but based on those screenshots, they obviously mimicked tons of assets. Armor, weapons (the frying pan, really?), structures, and even some level design. That, combined with the fact that the design of the game was identical seems like a pretty good case to me. Another thing that will make the case interesting is that mobile games like this are like chameleons. If you look up free fire now, it looks more like Fortnite.

duskwuff 5y ago
> (the frying pan, really?) Hardly original to PUBG. Valve had a frying pan in Team Fortress 2 in 2010, long before PUBG even existed: https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Frying_Pan https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Frying_Pan
Supermancho 5y ago
> That, combined with the fact that the design of the game was identical seems like a pretty good case to me. Clones are common for a reason. Heroes of Newerth, 12-odd years ago, was a functional copy of DotA, with identical items; eg boots, bottle, etc. A more recent Apple action, where they are taking Wordle clones down, isn't an indication that there's a copyright violation. This is just the Apple walled garden trying to prop up winners for their own Black Mirror-style ends (30% cut is easier from a single vendor and everyone gets to participate in the news story). You can mimic as much as you want because game design is not copyrightable. Your game is basically the same, does not make a good case. You want to point to specific assets, art, and other copyrighted IP.

jcranmer 5y ago

Not a copyright lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt: One of the core limitations on copyright is the idea-expression divide. Copyright does not--cannot--protect an idea, only the expression of the idea. (There are other limitations on what expressions themselves can be protected, but if it's not even an expression, you're hosed). Of course, this itself isn't a clear-cut and easy divide, and is endless wishy-washy. So what allegedly copyrighted material has been lifted here? Well... as you dig into it, it's really a stretch. The argument is that PUBG copyrighted using a military-style helmet in a shooter game. No, seriously, ¶57 is arguing that using a particular "Russian special forces or 'spetsnaz'-style helmet" is a copyrighted element. ¶59 ups the insanity by arguing that using clothing is copyrighted. Not specific kinds of clothing, just regular streetware in general. Again and again, most of their claims on the aesthetic being copyrighted boil down, essentially, to "we copyrighted using military-style equipment, casual streetware, and a vaguely war-torn, somewhat austere Eastern European-ish environment as the setting for a shooter game." Which is not copyrightable for the even more basic fact that this predates PUBG by a long-shot. The two strongest copyright claims to me are a) the use of the frying pan and b) "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner". The first claim itself is pretty weak, but it's one of the strongest by simple virtue of its actual rarity in games, so PUBG may have a viable claim to have actually originated it. And the second claim is weak because I'm not sure it's actually infringed--the claimed infringement (¶101) is that the win screen has a cooked chicken on it, not the actual phrase. So the basic summary I have is that, while Free Fire is definitely a rip-off of PUBG, PUBG's aesthetic itself is so generic that it's not really copyright infringement.

p1necone 5y ago
The Winner Winner Chicken Dinner thing wasn't even invented by PUBG, that's been a common phrase (how common depends on the country) since before /video games/ existed, let alone PUBG specifically.
Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
I am also not an american copyright lawyer, is that "dissecting the details, ignoring the grand scale" how american IP laws for video games work? Concerning #57 and #59 the chapter is about what PUBG is, not about what is copied or copyrighted. You are wrong when you say they claim "using clothing is copyrighted" they do not make that claim at all. That chapter in the document describes in detail the artistic choices Krafton made in their expression of a battle royal last man standing free for all deathmatch arena ego shooter that is PUBG. In the next chapter (#78+) they argue that Garena is copying the overall look, feel, and audiovisual style, gameplay, maps, and many detailed design choices. They don't even pick up on that specific detail of clothing again. While i completely agree with you that they did not in fact come up with the artistic choice of clothing in mixed civilian and military gear, they directly lifted it from DayZ, which took it from the generic post-apocalyptic setting, the point of these details is to show that Garena is infringing by creating an almost identical expression of the idea, instead of creating a distinct expression of their own. It seems to me that the whole thing is not about sueing them over details like the level3 helmet looking almost identical to the one from the PUBG box art and marketing material. Yes Krafton claims the rendering of that helmet is a copyrightable piece of visual art in #57, but they do not claim that this piece of art was copied in #94, they claim that Garena used the same three types of helmets (motorad, military, spetsnaz) as their level 1,2,3 gear as part of their overall attempt to copy the whole game down to the details. The document seems less like a list of small infringements and more like list of examples of one big infringement. The core claim is that Garena is intentionally making an identical game. (again, not a lawyer)