WEBVTT - The Biggest Lawsuits in Gaming History 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:12.160 Get in Touch with Technology was tex Stuff from dot com. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.520 Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff. I am your host, 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:20.200 Jonathan Strickland today over the magic of the Internet. I 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.919 have joining me Mr I as actar, my buddy, my 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.920 co host on other shows like Podcast Without Pretense, and 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:33.080 of course a big wig over at c net and 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:39.000 also somebody who knows a thing or two about the law. Yeah. Well, 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.239 thanks for having me back. It was fun doing the 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:45.320 oppolye tech piece, and now I think because of my 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:50.080 my strange past, I was asked to discuss some tech lawsuits. Yeah. 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.120 Originally we were going to look at a list like 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.840 four or five big lawsuits in tech, but two of 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.280 the suits that that I has brought up to me 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.760 before we got started, before we really dove into the topic, 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:09.280 are really fascinating. They also tie into another topic that 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.479 we covered recently on Tech Stuff, that being Atari, when 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.640 we talked about the rise and fall of Atari in 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.959 a epic three part series. So these two lawsuits have 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.800 Atari in common as as one of the the the 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.440 participants in said suits, and I as I'm so glad 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.800 you're here to explain not just what happened and what 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.640 are the particulars of the case, but why it's important 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:38.680 because both of these cases took place fairly early on 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:44.080 in the era of home video games, and as a result, 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.040 would end up really shaping the way video games are 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:53.320 treated under copyright law. Yeah. So for those people who 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.440 don't know, I went to law school. I graduated at 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.160 Past the Barn, New York, States and immediately got a 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:01.320 job in technolog g ended up doing that for the 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.600 rest of my career. Um. And so there's there's there's 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.440 a long history of why I became a lawyer. You know, parents, 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:10.919 first generation American like be be a lawyer or a doctor. 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.120 So the game a law degree, um. And I took 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.880 intellectual property in school. And these cases, the ones that 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:18.720 we're gonna talk about, were presented to me back to 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.240 back and it was just maddening to try to figure 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.160 out the differences why one case went one way and 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:26.280 went why one another. And we'll get all into that. 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.520 But I'm really kicking myself because I used to have 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.520 my my books, my notebooks. I'm like, I'll never need 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.360 my briefs anymore. So I chucked them out. And so 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.720 here we go talking about two cases that I learned 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.240 a long time ago. So uh, if there are any errors, 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.000 I apologize. But we have looked over the cases of 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:45.840 several times today personally, and I've looked at two or 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.160 three times today and written up notes again. I printed 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.320 out one of them the right notes, because that's how 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.600 I used to do it back in the day. To 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:55.720 the point to the point where you have hard copy 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.119 in front of you, I literally have my penciled out 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:01.960 notes all over based on book briefs, which I used 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.080 to do when I was in school. Wow. So the 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.520 first of the two cases we're talking about, and as 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.280 I has pointed out, these have to do with intellectual property, 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.919 with copyright, which is a tricky subject right. Well, I've 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.200 talked about several times on tech stuff, and in general, 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:23.360 copyright is about making sure someone who creates a work 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:27.600 of some sort that's an affixed tangible medium has some 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:31.440 sort of protection that that you don't have to worry about, 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.880 or rather you have some recourse if someone were to 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.560 try and copy that work you could pursue action against 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.120 them based upon the copyright. It gives you that that 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.400 level of protection, and anything that you set down in 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:49.080 a fixed tangible medium technically is protected by copyright. Registering 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:53.080 a copyright, however, is a great idea because then there's 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.560 an official record of said copyright if you should ever 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.400 have cause to, you know, bring that up in court. Um. 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.240 This is one of those things where it really only 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.440 plays out as soon as there is is either a 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.800 lawsuit or the threat of a lawsuit. Otherwise it's kind 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.839 of a it's it's kind of in the background. And 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.800 the first case that we wanted to talk about was 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:21.000 Atari versus Amusement World, which sounds like the most fun 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.640 lawsuit ever. It definitely does the cases from way back 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.839 in and it was the U. S. District Court in Maryland, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.880 And uh, it's pretty simple ideas. So we have two 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:36.080 different companies. We've gotta tar and they held the copyright 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.080 for Asteroids. You guys probably heard that game. You've probably 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.560 seen it, you know, just saying asteroids. I'm sure you 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:43.080 guys have a picture in your head. There's a little 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.320 triangular ship and there and their rocks flying at you 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.480 and you blow them up right right until you get 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:50.800 blown up by either a rock or one of the 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.560 few little enemy spaceships that would occasionally pop up. Yeah. 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:56.800 So another company called Amusement World, which again is a 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.120 great name. It's not as creative as a tari as that. 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.000 When I listened to the three partner on it's already 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.080 finding out where the names came from. I'm like, this 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.480 is pretty awesome to hear. Um. So these guys basically 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:08.360 saw the idea and they're like, we we could make 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.520 our own game. And uh. One of the big things 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:12.960 that you're gonna get out of this case is that 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.480 you can't. You can't have a monopoly on an idea. 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:18.760 So they are free to make a game. But it's 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:20.200 already saw this game and they're like, wait a second, 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.000 it's Trangler ship. You're blown up ros. You're totally stealing 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.760 our stuff and we're seeing you right. And another thing 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.160 to keep in mind is this is early enough in 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.880 the in the era of video games that the court 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.040 had not fully decided that video games were something you 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.080 could totally copy right. In fact, in the other case 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.400 we're gonna talk about, there's a note in the court's 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.760 decision that says these game video games are not something 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.599 you can fully copy, right, But there are elements of 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.919 copyright protection that do extend to video games. And it 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.159 gets into particulars that we're probably not going to cover 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.919 in this in this podcast, but just to say that 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:59.880 this was kind of a Wild West era of both 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.800 the home video game industry and of law because technology 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.520 had outpaced what the legal system was ready to cover. 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:11.839 And we see that again and again, not just in 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.920 video games obviously, but in all realms of technology and law. 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:18.359 You see that with things like the autonomous cars coming 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.800 out and people saying, wait a minute, how do we 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:23.840 what sort of legislation do we need to put up 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:28.960 to deal with this new reality of technology? And it 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.760 just turns out that, you know, the law is something 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:36.360 that has to catch up to our changing world. Uh. 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.000 And in this case, you know, we had we had 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:44.520 an interesting uh case brought forth by Atari saying here 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.680 are some of the things that we say, are the 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.080 similarities between our game and this other game called Meteors 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:56.239 Asteroids and Meteors. I mean already just with the names. 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.040 You're like, guys, maybe we should come up with a different, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.040 you know, idole. But they court identified a bunch of 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:07.960 multiple points of similarity. Now, in cases of trying to 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:13.280 determine whether an author has plagiarized another author, for example, 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.760 often courts will ask for some third party, preferably a 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.400 a third party that has no interest in the outcome 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:26.200 of the case, to identify any points of similarity and 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.520 then give his or her opinion as to whether or 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:34.400 not the points of similarity indicate a case of plagiarism, 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.720 or if, in fact, it could have just been coincidence, because, 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.320 as we're all aware, different people can come up with 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.080 similar ideas that around the same time, and it's not 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.640 always a case of of plagiarism. So here are some 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.720 of the points of similarity. Both games involved the player 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.640 shooting and destroying rocks, and in both games there are 0:07:55.680 --> 0:08:00.000 actually three different sizes of rocks. Those rocks would appear 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.480 in waves, with the initial waves being composed of bigger rocks. 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.440 When you shoot them, they would break into medium sized rocks. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.720 Medium sized rocks would break into small rocks. Small rocks 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.720 would disappear when you shot them, and the speed of 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:16.160 the rocks would depend upon their size, so large rocks 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.200 move more slowly than small ones. So as you're spinning 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.680 around with your little ship in both asteroids and meteors, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.400 as you shoot these rocks, they start getting smaller and 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.400 they start moving faster, so you know, you develop your 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.640 strategy around that. Uh. And in both if you got 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.120 hit by a rock game over right, or at least 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.640 your your player life for that one ended, you would 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.199 usually get multiple lives per game. Um. And both games 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:46.199 had enemy spaceships and uh. The enemy spaceships came in 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.280 two different sizes for both games. The bigger ones were 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.800 worth fewer points than the smaller ones, the idea being 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:54.880 that the smaller ones are harder to hit, therefore they're 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.200 worth more points. Both the players ships and the enemy 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.360 space ships could shoot projectiles. Impact would be automatic destruction, 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.160 which would be accompanied by I think they actually said 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:09.080 the symbol of an explosion, because I mean, this is 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.120 this is early days of video games, guys. You remember, 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.800 like there's not a heck of a a lot you can do, yeah, 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.079 when it comes to graphically representing anything. So we're talking 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.719 some pretty primitive looking graphics. So it's this stuff that 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.839 gets laid out here. In the next case, it actually 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.360 determines how like we could have so many side scrollers. 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.800 It's just it's such a bizarre way to go. Yeah, 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.840 And then that's something else that will come up in 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.880 this discussion is that part of the reason the cases 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.520 turned out the way they did is again it's so 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:44.440 early on in the era of video games that people 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.400 had not really well, one, the technology had not advanced 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.160 to the point where you could have very different depictions 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:56.079 of uh, you know, different interpretations of the same basic idea. 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.240 You were limited in that because the technology itself was limited. 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.400 So it's not like you could, you know, have one 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.560 that looks like asteroids where you've got this top down 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.360 view of a little triangle shooting rocks, and the other 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:13.439 one you have a photo realistic, you know, space simulator 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.599 where you're flying through shooting rocks. Uh. So the technology 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:20.560 itself was limited, and thus a lot of people figured 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:24.600 that the ability to express an idea itself was limited 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.920 because of that. Um. But there's some other similarities that 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.840 I thought were kind of like, well, there's no reason 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.120 that you could argue one game would have to have 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:39.960 this particular element versus the other. For example, both games 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.800 had a two tone beeping noise that increased in tempo 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:48.960 as the game progressed, so like, uh, we just get 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:53.319 faster and faster. Um. Both games had scores for players 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:56.240 that were displayed in the same sections of the screen, so, 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.400 in other words, like the player one score would be 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:00.320 in the upper left corner, and the player to score 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:04.480 be the upper right corner. Both games had a thrust 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.200 button that would let the player's ship move in whatever 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.479 direction it happened to be facing at the time. Um, 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.680 have you ever played Asteroids like the arcade version of Asteroids. 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.319 I've actually played the home version of Asteroids. I don't 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.680 think I've ever played it in the arcade. Actually, yeah, 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.960 the arcade version was tough. I mean, this would be 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.319 the home version because it is a tari I believe 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.480 it's not the video game version. Maybe it could be 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:31.880 the video game version because you did have both divisions. 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:36.959 But um, the the buttons on the Asteroids game were 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:39.480 what would allow you to turn the ship left, turn 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.920 the ship right, or use thrust. Um, obviously you would 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:47.240 just use a direction on your joystick usually I think 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:51.880 pressing up would give you the thrust in the home version. Ah, 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.440 but in both versions, if you released the thrust, then 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.160 gradually your ship would come to a halt. Although the 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:03.760 court did did actually notice that this happens more quickly 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.560 in meteors than in Asteroids. Uh. And both games at 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:12.040 Tindelsan points you'd get an extra life and each successfully 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.839 completed wave of rocks initiates a new wave, and each 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.240 new wave has more rocks in it than the previous wave. 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.480 So those were the similarities that the court noticed between 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:24.959 these two games, and there are a lot of them. 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.760 I mean, there's the very basic nature of the game 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.960 seems identical in these cases, right, I mean, it would 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.160 be hard for me to argue otherwise I would think, yeah, 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.360 I mean, if if it's kind of like modern games, 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.320 you think of like Call of Duty versus any other 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.440 battlefield game, you think of any any kind of war game, 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.280 they all kind of the same. But why is that 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.280 even allowed? Um, there are differences in these two games 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:55.439 Meteors and Asteroids. So Asteroids had this, uh at a 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.360 black field underneath the actual game, but in Meteors you 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.320 had this star field and the look of distant stars. 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:03.880 And this is kind of really pushing it because when 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:05.600 you're looking at them, if you have seen the photos 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.480 of this this game, you'll see they're just basically dots. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.480 That's kind of neat. Asteroids is black and white, and 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.920 Meteors was in color, and that was pretty different. Meteors 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.440 also had some shading on the spaceship and the rocks 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:20.480 so kind of had more dimension because the Asteroids is 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.560 pretty black looking when it comes to ships and rocks, 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.640 almost like a schematic drawing, like it's it's it's or 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.560 almost abstract in a way because the rocks all look 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.679 the same and they all just kind of float at you, 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.120 and then you shoot them and now they're they're different sized, 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:40.600 but the shapes are still very much the same and 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.160 they're still floating at you. It's not you know, there's 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:48.040 no real sense of, uh, the dimensionality in the original 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.439 Asteroids game. I really like the element that Meteors starts off. 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:53.320 When you start off the game, there's an animation of 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.840 you blasting off of Earth. Compare that to Asteroids. You 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.560 just start and you're just in the in the field. 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.960 Time to go, um, you've got the game. Meteors is 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.600 actually faster in general, and it moved, and you have 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.160 a different way of shooting as well. You could can 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.560 you could shoot a lot more, I think continuously compared 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.319 to Asteroids. Right, Asteroids was like a burst fire thing. 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:15.920 You could fire a few shots, but then you had 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:20.000 to wait. It's almost like a recharge period. Have been 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:21.840 missing anything else, So that's the main one that's the 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.880 main ones. I mean, uh, you know, there were There 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.280 was also the fact that the meteors and meteor and 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:32.280 meteors rather could tumble like they actually they actually seemed 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.120 to rotate as they were coming towards you, whereas the 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.120 if you watch the old Asteroids game, those shapes just 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:43.840 they maintain their same orientation as they move across. So 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.280 there was that too. So there were some definite improvements 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:53.479 on the game. So Amusement World had to defend itself 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.360 against these claims of copyright infringement. They tried a couple 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.720 of different tactics. The first thing they tried was, uh, 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:05.480 they said that Atari's copyright on Asteroids was invalid in 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.360 this case because of the way they registered their copyright. 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:14.600 So they said that Atari had registered Asteroids copyright as 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:19.120 an audio visual work, not as a literary work, and 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.560 that as a result, the copyright wasn't valid. They said 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:27.160 that Atari had submitted essentially a film a video of 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:31.240 one out of a possible infinite variations of a single game. 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:36.440 So in other words, they captured gameplay footage of Asteroids, 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:41.600 and that particular gameplay footage was being sent as as 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:47.320 part of the the work that Atari was submitting to 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:53.320 get this copyright, and I guess Amusement World was essentially saying, well, technically, 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.840 wouldn't that just give copyright to that specific film? Like 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.120 that was that's such a great argument. It's taking You 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:01.920 were saying, this is the wild West, it's the early 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.080 days of video games, and how are they protected to 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.000 the idea that that Amusement World is pushing us. Wait 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.480 a second, that's a tape or recording. You definitely have 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.120 protection for that, but you're suing us about the game itself. 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:17.800 And the court was like, wait, wall, wait a second. Okay, 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:22.480 now they did h put the work in a tangible medium, 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.640 and that happens to be the circuitry, and it's not 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.680 so easy to descend us an arcade cabinet. This is 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:30.840 the way it used to be. Yeah, yeah, because the 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.040 wrong chip. I mean, the game is hard coded on 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.760 a a a circuit board, and that circuit board is 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.120 only useful if you haven't connected up to the rest 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.120 of the system. So you I mean, you would have 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:47.160 to have had a Torris and a full console like 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.520 I mean, a full like Atari cabinet out to the 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.920 patent office that or rather the copyright office and deliver 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.880 that and say like, here's our fixed tangible medium. And hilariously, 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:00.160 I know a lot of people think the law is 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.760 kind of messed up and it allows for absurd results. 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.760 If this kind of actual event that's happening right now 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.200 we're talking about, if they if Atari had to send 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.800 an actual cabinet every single time it made a game, 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.880 that would cause such a ludicrous amount of storage requirements 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.080 by the government would make no sense. It would can 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.359 you imagine filing these arcades? Well, it would have made 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.760 the copyright office a much more fun place to work. 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:28.439 It would be a great fantastic break area where you like, 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.080 we guess, guess what we got? This other game hasn't 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:35.640 even come out in our gades yet. Um, you know, 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.720 it seems to me this this is the argument I 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.320 would make with this, Like if you were trying to 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.640 to say, like, well, what is this similar to Let's 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:48.160 say that I write a play and, for some reason 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:52.520 that I cannot even come up with right now, I 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.640 submit my play to the copyright office, not by sending 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.119 in a script to to be copied, you know, to 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:03.760 register the copyright, but rather I put on a performance 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:09.720 of the play and then I record the performance on 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.880 using a video camera or whatever, and I send that 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.560 in to be copyright. That you could argue like, well, 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.800 you're copyrighting the performance of this play, but the play 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.720 itself you still haven't registered. That's kind of the argument 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:27.439 Amusement World was making. And ultimately the court dismissed this 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.879 argument and said, all right, you know, for for practicality sake, 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.600 just for the same reasons that I as was mentioning earlier, 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.959 we have to draw the line somewhere and a video 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:44.119 depicting gameplay footage is going to be differentiated from a 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:48.840 film in that we're not saying that this one video 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.480 representation of the game is the only thing that is 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:58.240 protected under copyright because it's ludicrous. But but it could 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.600 have gone the other way. That could have been a 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:03.880 first case where they're saying, actually, you're right, they didn't 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:07.919 send necessarcuit board. Um, well, no, you're right, there's no 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.000 copyright protection and definite your copyright covers a heck of 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.679 a lot of things, include including derivative works. So if 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.080 John Fannits send in that recording, if I transcribed it, 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:20.480 and go ha, I can sell this because you didn't 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:24.240 copyright the actual script. Clearly it's derivative of what you've done. 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.600 So that's it's supposed to reward the content creator. It's 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:32.120 supposed to be about furthering uh society because you when 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.400 you write something, you're protected and you can actually enjoy 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:36.639 the fruits of your labor. And that's the whole point 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:39.760 of copyright in a nutshell. Yeah, and it and it 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:42.760 does get complicated. I mean, using that other example of 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.720 the play and shooting a video, Let's say that I 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.880 haven't sent in the script for copyright yet. I as 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.320 comes to a rehearsal of this play that has not 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:55.119 yet been copyrighted. He video tapes the rehearsal and copyrights 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.000 the videotape, and now suddenly he's got a registered copyright, 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.080 assuming that it's granted, he has just a copyright for 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:06.480 this thing. I haven't copyrighted my script, and his registration 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.440 would predate anything I would send in, which would cause 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.920 further complications. So you know, the whole point of this 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.560 is to try and create as clear a record of 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.560 ownership as possible. But if you don't do your part 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.600 in that, then you can't expect to have the protection 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.359 that it would grant you. So uh in this case, 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:32.280 I guess it was a good thing that the court said, hey, uh, 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.120 the the audio visual thing is not um, not a barrier. 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.160 It's not something that is going to count against Atari 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.879 in this case. But Amusement World then had to change 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.800 its tactics and said that, Uh. What Attari was trying 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:51.639 to do was claim copyright protection of the idea of 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.440 a video game in which the player tries to survive 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:59.920 encounters with asteroids and enemy spaceships. So this is where 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:05.240 to get into another interesting uh facet of copyright, because, 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:10.320 as it turns out, an idea by itself is not 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.560 something that's guaranteed protection. There's the whole thing about idea 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.840 versus the expression of an idea. And you're gonna get 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:22.240 familiar with this jeweled be pendant and what this this 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.600 thing is. If there was this lawsuit, I'll do it 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.960 real quick. There was one manufacturer of a thing of 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:30.680 it like a brooch or a pin that a person 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:34.119 would wear. It was a B that had jewels on it. 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.040 So somebody saw that idea, Hey, that's a really cool idea. 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:41.600 I'm gonna make the same thing. So the first person 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.680 who made the be jeweled B said no, I'm suing 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:48.560 you for for copyright. That's mine, and the court said, listen, 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:53.760 there's only one way to show a jeweled B. That's it. Now. 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.399 Granted we could have a different pattern on the actual B, 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.240 but a B, if you're trying to keep it realistic, 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:01.800 is going to have the black and yellow or brown 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.280 and yellow kind of stripes. It's gonna have wings. There 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.440 are elements you cannot change about this, and there's only 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:11.160 one true way to do this. In that case, you do. 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.320 The first person does have a copyright on that actual item, 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:17.440 but it's not exactly terribly strong. Another person can actually 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:19.960 make the same thing also have a copyright on it, 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.160 which sounds a little bit bizarre if you think about it. 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:27.600 But because you can't copyright the idea, this is free 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:29.879 to copy, and you know you still have a copyright. 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.160 It's just such a weak, weak copyright that it's it's 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:35.879 very very strange. And that's basically we gets applied to 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:39.760 this case. Yeah, yeah, this this idea that okay, so 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:43.840 the idea itself is not copyrightable. That there you could 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:47.359 have the reasonable expectation that different people would want to 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.760 create a game based on this same kernel of an idea. 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:55.800 The argument then becomes, well, how many different ways are 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.200 there to express that idea? If it turns out there's 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.080 really only one method of doing it, you can't truly 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:07.360 have protection of that because it would be silly, right 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:09.840 if it's it's only if there are multiple ways to 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:14.040