Zynga and Vostu Bury the Axe

[Andy Chalk]

Zynga and Vostu Bury the Axe

Zynga has come out on top in a settlement with Brazilian developer Vostu over alleged copyright infringement in various Vostu games.

Back in June, social gaming behemoth Zynga imposed an injunction [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111135-Zynga-Sues-Brazilian-Copy-Cat-Developer-for-MegaCity] against Vostu and gave it 48 hours to get four of its games off the internet or face fines of roughly $13,000 for every day that they remain online.

The two companies have now settled their differences in both the U.S. and Brazil, and in the end it was Vostu that was forced to back down. "As part of the settlement, Vostu made a monetary payment to Zynga and made some changes to four of its games," the two companies said in a joint statement to Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38975/Zynga_Settles_Copying_Claim_Dispute_With_Social_Startup_Vostu.php]. "The parties are pleased to have settled their disputes and to now put these matters behind them."

It's not exactly a huge win but it's still some much-needed good news for Zynga, which has had a bit of a rough ride lately, with criticism of its floating an IPO [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114403-Zyngas-Corporate-Culture-Bleeds-Talent-Money] a few days ago, putting its value at $1 billion.



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[BrotherRool]

Yay! More proof that justice is for the rich!

Seriously being the guy sued by Zynga for copyright infringement must be rough

 

[rekabdarb]

Eh.

Yeah the names are close, and their logos. But we need to play the games side by side and see if they really are the same.

And Zynga poker... i don't think they should be able to sue for that. If they can, that's bullshit

 

[lacktheknack]

"We released all our games months afterwards, but STILL, Zynga copied US!"

Do people think anymore?

 

[HobbesMkii]

Bury the hatchet. I think axes would take too long.

 

[2fish]

Bury the hatchet. I think axes would take too long.

Unless Zynga buried the axe in Vostu's skull. Critical hit!

Yeah it doesn't even look like they tried to cover up the copy paste job.

 

[The Random One]

Too bad, this case has been hilarious. Vostu's 'games' where copy-and-paste jobs, and yet they had the balls to say Zynga was suing them because they were so derivative that they couldn't recognize their 'originality'. They had everything to make Zynga look like the good guys but were so balls-out crazy that they wrapped around and became awesome.

 

[direkiller]

"We released all our games months afterwards, but STILL, Zynga copied US!"

Do people think anymore?

a few months it is possible(game development takes longer then that for smaller company)

year+ on some of them yea not so much

 

[duchaked]

the key is to not copy more than 1 or 2 games at a time, not like...4 at once heh

 

[Aidinthel]

"We released all our games months afterwards, but STILL, Zynga copied US!"

Do people think anymore?

They must have noticed how easily Zynga got away with ripping off everyone else and figured it would work for them too.