Gridiron Champions Has a Release Date, College Football Returns in 2020

[T4VERTS]

Quote: Originally Posted by Unlucky 13

So, what if they were to put a game out that allows the user to edit and create anything that they wish, but with no online aspect and no ability to share with others? Basically, taking it back to the early PS2 days. Would that be viable?

It is more likely to be viable but still inside the scope of legal issues. It would be harder to prove damages in this instance because with no data to back up how many actually used it for such a purpose you could get a similar outcome to Sony v Universal. Basically in that case Universal made a claim that the whole idea of home recording, Sony Betamax, was infringing on their copyrights. The courts found that because many people used it for time warping, and that was a reasonable use, that the infringement was an allowable occurrence as it wasn't the primary function of the Betamax.

In this case IMV could claim that most people don't use the customization to do that, but rather to add themselves into games and such. Short of them finding information in discovery where the insinuate they know that isn't the case, or they have correspondence with others pointing out they know it is a major use of their system then it would be tough to prove. Now with that said, that is where their earlier public comments about being able to just load up team logos and such would be an issue but not necessarily insurmountable without data to back up how pervasive that use actually was.

*Just to reiterate I am not a lawyer, I just deal with this kind of stuff in what I do for a living so I have read a lot of case law as it relates to copyrights, trademarks, patents, etc.

[Hooe]

It's worth noting that video game companies have shown previous awareness of the legal ramifications of user-generated content and its potential for widespread intellectual property rights violations.

Most relevant to Gridiron Champions, which is seeking a PC release on Steam: Steam's Subscriber Agreement specifically calls out user-generated content (for Steam Workshop). The user must agree that he has the rights to use any intellectual property included in a Steam Workshop file he submits to the service (Section 6 point D). By itself this language doesn't prevent users from uploading stuff that infringes on IP rights - I can go download a McDonald's for Cities: Skylines right now - but it's very clearly a violation of Steam's terms of service to infringe on third-party IP rights. To this end, that IMV is so openly advertising that their game will allow users to infringe on third-party IP rights and encouraging them to do so probably isn't going to sit well with Valve.

Some other examples of video game companies policing or controlling UGC:

2K Sports has a history of removing user-generated content from NBA 2K18 which infringes on third-party IP rights.

EA Sports did not include file sharing functionality for custom fighters in EA Sports UFC due to concerns over potential intellectual property rights and trademark infringements.

[CujoMatty]

What you just said CM hooe is my point. Steam puts the liability on the user and the user is violating the terms of service. But you can still download the violating files. Give me all the legal jargon in the world but McDonald’s isn’t suing anyone, could they? According to our legal contributor the answer is a resounding yes. Quite frankly I believe that but It’s just simply not very likely. IMO. *Why I only read about this whenever NCAA games are brought up makes zero sense to me. OOTP has add on central. PES is the worst offender. MLB the Show you can make player likeness *and share in the vault that has been proven by the Obannon case to be a no no. *All big ant sports games. That’s only a few. So I guess we could argue for days of whether or not there could be liability issues but I’m just not seeing it. *I

ill let it go now and honestly I did learn some things from this so thanks for the discussion.

[Hooe]

I think a key difference here is that, unlike McDonald's, the NFL, NCAA, and groups representing football and basketball players each separately have established track records of pursuing litigation to protect their intellectual property. The NFL in particular is especially litigious.

You're right, however, that in order for the law to matter in practice, the infringed party must be aware of the violation at all and also care enough about the violation to pursue legal action. That's what T4Verts is getting at with the "security in obscurity" comment.

[redsox4evur]

Quote: Originally Posted by CujoMatty

What you just said CM hooe is my point. Steam puts the liability on the user and the user is violating the terms of service. But you can still download the violating files. Give me all the legal jargon in the world but McDonald’s isn’t suing anyone, could they? According to our legal contributor the answer is a resounding yes. Quite frankly I believe that but It’s just simply not very likely. IMO. *Why I only read about this whenever NCAA games are brought up makes zero sense to me. OOTP has add on central. PES is the worst offender. MLB the Show you can make player likeness *and share in the vault that has been proven by the Obannon case to be a no no. *All big ant sports games. That’s only a few. So I guess we could argue for days of whether or not there could be liability issues but I’m just not seeing it. *I ill let it go now and honestly I did learn some things from this so thanks for the discussion.

McDonalds COULD sue anybody and everybody who uses their IP. But they don't due to not knowing about it, to put it simply, like T4VERTS said. Then it all comes down to whether you (company whose rights are being infringed upon) think it's worthwhile or not. Think of it like these tattoo in video games cases. For the artist it's worthwhile because they probably aren't raking in the dough everyday. So a couple hundred thousand dollars is worthwhile to them. But for McDonalds a 2.666 billion dollar company is it worthwhile for them to waste months or years in court to gain an extra 200K or what the damage payout would be?

[T4VERTS]

Quote: Originally Posted by CujoMatty

What you just said CM hooe is my point. Steam puts the liability on the user and the user is violating the terms of service. But you can still download the violating files. Give me all the legal jargon in the world but McDonald’s isn’t suing anyone, could they? According to our legal contributor the answer is a resounding yes. Quite frankly I believe that but It’s just simply not very likely. IMO. *Why I only read about this whenever NCAA games are brought up makes zero sense to me. OOTP has add on central. PES is the worst offender. MLB the Show you can make player likeness *and share in the vault that has been proven by the Obannon case to be a no no. *All big ant sports games. That’s only a few. So I guess we could argue for days of whether or not there could be liability issues but I’m just not seeing it. *I ill let it go now and honestly I did learn some things from this so thanks for the discussion.

Biggest differentiation comes down to the Napster case.They question that is asked will be "what is the overwhelming use of the function for?". In most those cases it has a legit non infringing use, IMV has positioned there customization function for the purpose of skirting copyright laws. That is there downfall.

It is a complex issue with multiple prongs to it, but to put it simply there are really a lot of reasons why this is different than other instance. As I said earlier though, this is more of an example of why I don't think it'll ever be made more so than what will happen if they do really is moot. Their release about funding is misleading in itself because all it really days is they got a company who thinks they can help them raise 10 million not that they have or are close at all to doing so. This look a lot like what you see from pink sheet stocks, lots of PR's about plans but little to show.

[crques]

I'm definitely intrigued by the game, but I'm not going to get myself overly excited. At this point we've seen some screenshots, but we don't know much more about the game. We've all grown accustomed to the EA NCAA series and all the memories it brought, but this is a completely different game and has no affiliation whatsoever to that series. Having a college football game again sounds great, but we really don't know what we are getting. I will feel better once we starting getting more info and game play footage. Until then I'm going to try to keep an even keel mindset about the game and hope for the best.

[Unlucky 13]

So, wait. Is it technically illegal for me to spend all my own time using a system to recreate the real world of college football from scratch, if I so see fit?

For my own personal use and enjoyment, sharing it with no one?