Law Professor Comments on Sims Social vs. The Ville Suit

Eric Goldman, who is a professor at the School of Law of the Santa Clara University, has offered his opinion on the copyright case that publisher Electronic Arts has launched against social game company Zynga over the similarities between The Sims Social and The Ville.

Goldman is a specialist in Internet and intellectual property law and believes that a lot of the arguments brought forward by Electronic Arts are debatable and that the publisher might be playing with fire by exposing a number of practices that are usual in the gaming industry.

The law professor stated, “What Zynga took, and I don’t think they’re going to argue it, is that there’s a thought bubble that’s going to remind people about bathrooms. But the thought bubble is shaped differently, and it’s a toilet toilet paper. So can you take the idea of having a thought bubble to suggest that a character needs to go to the bathroom?”

The jury is likely to be the one who is asked to decide on the case, but Goldman believes that Electronic Arts and Zynga will probably reach a settlement before the case goes to trial.

Goldman added, “EA says, ‘They changed their game.’ Zynga says, ‘We didn’t really change anything.’ Everyone goes away happy. That would be a logical outcome.”

Electronic Arts believes that The Sims Social introduced a number of mechanics and style elements that the team at Zynga working on The Ville has lifted wholesale in order to add to its new title.

The publisher says that it wants Zynga to respect its copyright and refrain from using its ideas in any other products and from copying the mechanics that any other developers introduce.

The general counsel for Zynga stated that the EA lawsuit was ironic and that his own company had created The Ville independently of any outside influence.

Via: Law Professor Comments on Sims Social vs. The Ville Suit