The article that I chose discussed the legal dispute between Zynga and Electronic Arts (EA). In August, EA sued Zynga, stating that Zynga's game "The Ville" infringes on EA's game "Sim Social". Zynga argued that simulating games have been around for a long time. In addition, they said that the game "Little Computer People" was released by Activision fifteen years before "The Sims" was released by EA. Zynga also accused EA of illegal business practices in employment. Zynga is using the same lawyers that Samsung is using in their legal battle with Apple. The article can be found here.
I think that some companies are taking copyright infringement too far. I understand that companies do not want their products to be duplicated, but some similarities are bound to happen. A gaming company should be able to produce a game without having to worry that another company is going to think that the people in their game are too similar to the people in the other company's game. I think that Zynga had a good point when they said that those kind of simulation games have been around for a while. Zynga had a Facebook game, YoVille, that was also somewhat of a life simulating game, and EA didn't sue them over that game.
I have learned several things from this unit, but I would not really say that my view has been changed. I was unaware that any intellectual property that was produced was automatically protected by copyright. It was interesting to learn the difference between copyright, patent, and trademark as well as about fair use. I already knew some things about piracy. I remember when Napster was a free service and I remember when they shut it down. I guess my views have changed since then, because I remember being frustrated that I couldn't download music anymore. Now, I understand that the reason that they made Napster a paid service is that the artists need to be compensated for their work.
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