God Of War Copyright Claim?

[Ares]

Judge Throws Out God Of War Copyright Claim
Court finds no similarities between works.
by Jim Reilly

March 19, 2010 - A California judge has thrown out a copyright infringement lawsuit filed in 2008 claiming Sony stole plot lines from other works when developing the PlayStation 2 hit God of War.

Plaintiffs Jonathan Bissoon-Dath and Jennifer B. Dath of Davis, California claimed Sony Computer Entertainment America and designer David Jaffe allegedly stole plot lines and original copyrighted material the two created for the story of God of War.

The official notice (viewable here) cites specific examples of the plaintiffs' work, which include two written treatments and screenplays based on Greek mythology. The claim makes references to similarities in plot, themes, dialogue, mood, settings, pace, characters and sequence of events to Sony's God of War videogame.

"Plaintiffs' works and God of War both involve a mortal human questing at the behest of a Greek god," the document says. "In plaintiffs' works, Zeus initiates a quest to restore peace after a human Spartan army attacks Athens, by convincing Athens and Sparta to participate in Olympic Games. In God of War, the goddess Athena assigns a quest to kill the god Ares while Ares is attacking Athens with mythical beasts."

But while there were similarities between each of the works, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel eventually dismissed the copyright claim saying that specific plot material is unrelated.

"Plaintiffs have pointed to no persuasive similarity in dialogue or narration that would suggest actual copying," the document says. Patel also referred to the case of Berkic v. Crichton from 1985, which established that generalized stories and plot lines do not fall under copyright protection.

"No one can own the basic idea for a story. General plot ideas are not protected by copyright law; they remain forever the common property of artistic mankind," the court decided.

As reported by IGN.

 

[Serj22]

I have an idea for a game, it involves castles and dragons and you can be a man or a woman who takes various quests from in-game characters and there will also be a main plot in the game, but players will be deterred from playing the actual story till doing most of the side-quests. The characters will use magic based off the 4 elements, Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and a variation of all, which will include Ice, Light, Dark, and Electricity/Lightning. Characters will heal with red colored potions in vials, and blue colored potions will restore their magic energy. They can rumage through bodies of the slain and retreive new weapons and armor to be used and as the game progresses, they will find better armor and weapons that should have been available earlier. A mage character will equip staffs and robes and funny hats, a warrior will get swords, axes, and armor, and rangers will get bows, guns, and crossbows as well as light armor based off normal clothes.

I have copyrighted this idea, and if anyone copies it, I have a team of 40 attorneys I like to call the "Dream Team" who will literally sue the pants off you. One of the attorneys is a Wizard and he is a LVL78 Lawyer Mage and he is versed in all manners of spells to cause you to lose in civil court, so do not copy my idea.



The only "copied work" I remember that actually had a purpose was Dave Mustaine Vs. Lars Ulrigh when Metallica kept a song he wrote, retitled it "The 4 Horsemen" and wrote it into their album with a better feel towards . Both songs were on the first album of each band, the original on Megadeth, being called "Mechanix" (not sure if that's right, but it's what I remember) but the melody is definitly inspired by Diamondhead's "Am I evil" and they were a torrential influence on Dave Mustaine, so that explains that. Now that, is a real issue of copying, and they are exactly the same song, and it's very apparent. Luckily Dave Mustaine won, since he wrote it, there was no competing. Check it out, all links:

Megadeth's Mecanix

Metallica's The Four Horsemen

And my thought on the original melody:

Diamondhead's Am I Evil


But as far as the God of War thing, I hope the people suing didn't think they could really invent Greek Mythology, otherwise, they can't win on that front. It already existed, therfore it's open to interpretation for anyone to make.