Sci-fi author sues Ubisoft over Assassin's Creed copyright infringement

[nsane.forums]

Science fiction author John L. Beiswenger has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against game publisher Ubisoft in a Pennsylvania district court, claiming that the Assassin's Creed series illegally copies ideas and themes he established in his 2002 novel Link.

Beiswenger's novel, as excerpted heavily in the suit (PDF), focuses on the titular Link device, which lets users relive the "ancestral memories" of long-dead relatives through DNA. The author alleges that this is a bit too close for comfort to Assassin's Creed's Animus devices, which are key to the series' sci-fi-meets-historical-assassinations plotline.

The book even makes reference to using the Link for assassination attempts, though the specific targets of those assassinations don't seem to match any in the Assassin's Creed universe. For example, as the lawsuit excerpts from page 290:

"If John Wilkes Booth fathered a child after he assassinated Lincoln, and we found a descendant alive today, we could place Booth at the scene and perhaps smell the gunpowder." "Ancestral memories?" "As far back as you want."

If that doesn't convince you that Ubisoft blatantly stole copyrighted ideas from The Link, Beisinger also points out that his book makes use of "spiritual and biblical tones" and has a recurring theme of "the battle between good and evil"... just like Assassin's Creed!. That has to be more than a coincidence, wouldn't you say?

Coincidence or not, the kinds of similarities cited in the complaint aren't nearly substantial enough to sustain a copyright infringement claim, according to Dallas attorney and Law of the Game blogger Mark Methenitis. "The level of comparison they're trying to make would be along the lines of both Back to the Future and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure have time machines as plot devices, so one must be infringing the other," he said. "A copyright does not protect abstract ideas at that level."

The lawsuit suggests that Beiswenger is due anywhere from $1.05 to $5.25 million from Ubisoft for copyright infringement across four Assassin's Creed games as well as multiple guide books, comic series and trailers. An Ubisoft representative said the company does not comment on ongoing litigation.

View: Original Article

[Ambrocious]

Good God...people are getting desperate here. I actually had this same idea several years ago before Assassins Creed as well only I called it P.L.A.N (Past Life Analyzing Node). You don't see me complaining or suing people do you?

In history, you can look this up as fact, around the same time, many inventors invented wonderful things (or had scientific discoveries) in or around the same time (literally within years or in the same year), in opposite places on the planet WITHOUT realizing that the other individual had created the same or similar thing. How the hell does that work? I don't know but the world is a very amazing place. List of Multiple Discoveries made in world history at the same or nearly same time. Here is an old article in PDF form about the woes of other people patenting stuff or not being able to patent stuff because SOMEONE ELSE got to it first. They call it an "anticipated discovery" when someone else got to the punch line first but I believe it's more than just cheap luck.

Ideas of greatness need not be haltered, stopped, prevented simply because it damages what you already have. Having more flavors is good with foods, why not discoveries?

[Alanon]

Wow. People seem to have a special knack for shitting all over the good stuff on the web. Sure, Ubisoft is shitty, with the DRM debacle, but the crackers bitchslapped them on the ass, and they removed it, aside from that the AC games are all the same, but the story rocks. This yo-yo wants publicity. Hope he gets clobbered over the mouth with it. He'll probably get a dozen death threats anyway. I say :rockon: AC homicidal fanatics!

[shamu726]

Wonder why he waited until AC had sequels and prequels on almost all platforms, novels, graphic novels and other merchandise before filling his suit? <_<

[christantoan]

Wonder why he waited until AC had sequels and prequels on almost all platforms, novels, graphic novels and other merchandise before filling his suit? <_<

So that he can get more money. I guess