3 Count: Disney Magic

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Walt Disney buys Murdoch’s Fox for $52.4bn

First off today, the BBC reports that Walt Disney has agreed to purchase 21st Century Fox in a $52.4 billion deal that also includes a 39% stake in the satellite broadcaster Sky and the entirety of 20th Century Fox film studio.

The deal had been rumored for some time but was finally announced this morning. It brings together two of the largest media companies and creates one massive organization worth an estimated $145 billion. However, it is unclear if this deal with see opposition from U.S. anti-trust regulators who may sue to stop it, as they did the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner

Not included in this deal will be News Corp, which is a newspaper publishing group owned by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox. Nor will it include various Fox cable properties including Fox News, Fox Business Network and Fox Sport Media Group.

2: Crytek sues Star Citizen Devs for Copyright Infringement, Breach of Contract

Next up today, Alissa McAloon at Gamasutra reports that video game developer Crytek has filed a lawsuit against Cloud Imperium Games and Roberts Space Industries (CIG and RSI), the developers of Star Citizen, over alleged copyright infringement and breach of contract.

At issue is the ongoing development of Star Citizen, a game that was first launched on Kickstarter in 2012 and has continued to raise a total of $173 million through crowd funding. The game was originally developed using Crytek’s CryEngine, however, CIG and RSI moved to Amazon’s Lumberyard engine (which is based on CryEngine) in 2016 as they felt it was better for a multiplayer game.

Crytek, however, alleges that their contract for the CryEngine required that it be used exclusively, and that CIS and RSI prominently feature Crytek’s trademark/copyright notices, contribute to the engine’s development and not use it in any other game. Crytek alleges CIS and RSI have broken nearly part of that agreement between the move to the new engine, creating a video series about the development and working on a new standalone game. CIS and RSI has said that the lawsuit is meritless and they will “vigorously defend” against it.

3: PlayerUnknown on Copyright Infringement: ‘There’s no IP Protection in Games’

Finally today, Joe Donnelly at PC Gamer reports that Brendan Green, the developer behind the popular PlayerUnknown’s: Battlegrounds (PUBG) spoke with BBC Radio 1’s Gaming Show and said that there was effectively no copyright protection on video games.

PUBG has gone has become a major success with gamers, rapidly becoming one of the most-played games online. Despite the game’s success, Green said that he was frustrated by clones and copies of his game that have appeared online.

According to Green, unlike with film or music, there isn’t much that you can do to fight video game plagiarisms. While he hopes that other developers do take the idea of the game and do new things with it, he’s frustrated by the sheer number of clones, often low-quality, and the lack of recourse against them.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.