Valve versus Sierra [Sep 20, 2004, 11:34 am ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
Valve vs.
Vivendi Universal dogfight heats up in US District Court on GameSpot (thanks
Democritus) reveals some details of a behind-the-scenes legal battle between
Valve and Sierra (now part of VU Games) over Half-Life and Half-Life 2 that's
been brewing for several years now. The article picks through details of a
recent court filing by Valve that reveals the current state of the litigation,
which has its next court date on October 8, though an actual trial is not
scheduled until March 21, 2005. Included are disputes over what
role Steam is to take in the game's distribution and who actually holds rights
to the Half-Life intellectual property. Here's a segment that summarizes some of
this:
In court filings, Sierra/VUG says that the current distribution of Half-Life 2 via Steam exceeds the scope of the current software publishing agreement between the two parties. It is apparently seeking the court's assistance in compelling Valve not to use Steam as an avenue of distribution.
On Friday, when asked if Valve was remained intent on making Half-Life 2 available to gamers via Steam, regardless of what was determined on October 8, Lombardi replied, "Yes."
Interestingly, and in spite of the ongoing legal dispute, Sierra/VUG still wants to work with Valve in the future and is asking the court via filings to force Valve to work with it on whatever is next in the development pipeline. It asks the court, in filings, "for a declaration that Sierra and VUG have the right to a fourth engine license pursuant to the terms of...the 2001 Agreement."
According to Lombardi, "We're going to meet the obligations of our current agreement."
Online distribution of games and music came of age years ago. Companies like Vivendi are the reason that we can't utilize it unless it's illegally like file sharing.
P2P file-sharing is actually legal, like emulation. The RIAA is trying to clamp down on the entire concept, but they've been foiled at every legal turn. The actual acquisition of something you haven't paid for is illegal, but the RIAA can't prove that. It's an assumption of guilt to say "everyone downloading mp3s on service X is a thief!" They can't prove these people aren't obtaining their one backup allowed by fair use laws. File sharing's quite legal.
What stuns me time after time is that rather than read the writing that's been on the wall in 12ft high letters written in blood for years and adapt, they'd rather spend millions in courts across the country just to keep the old status quo alive.
Well, it's like the mainstream media in the face of Internet journalism: they think they can ignore it and it will go away. While online distribution won't go away, it's not going to take the place of brick and mortar retailing, along with the distribution of physical media, for a long time. For all the coverage e-commerce gets, it's only something like 2% of all sales in the US. I'm sure that legit distribution services like iTunes have similar market shares, and I'm sure that Steam really won't make a dent in Gamestop's profits.
There's a long way to go yet before we can cut out a couple layers of middleman.
P2P file-sharing is actually legal, like emulation. The RIAA is trying to clamp down on the entire concept, but they've been foiled at every legal turn. The actual acquisition of something you haven't paid for is illegal, but the RIAA can't prove that. It's an assumption of guilt to say "everyone downloading mp3s on service X is a thief!" They can't prove these people aren't obtaining their one backup allowed by fair use laws. File sharing's quite legal.
What stuns me time after time is that rather than read the writing that's been on the wall in 12ft high letters written in blood for years and adapt, they'd rather spend millions in courts across the country just to keep the old status quo alive.
Well, it's like the mainstream media in the face of Internet journalism: they think they can ignore it and it will go away. While online distribution won't go away, it's not going to take the place of brick and mortar retailing, along with the distribution of physical media, for a long time. For all the coverage e-commerce gets, it's only something like 2% of all sales in the US. I'm sure that legit distribution services like iTunes have similar market shares, and I'm sure that Steam really won't make a dent in Gamestop's profits.
There's a long way to go yet before we can cut out a couple layers of middleman.
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