Xfire sues IGN Entertainment over Battlefield 2142’s chat client
And the circus just keeps rolling on as yet another lawsuit is being filed, right smack in the middle of I’ll-see-you-in-court season. With the Sony vs. Lik-Sang case still pretty fresh on our minds, this time around, the show will star in-game instant messaging provider Xfire and IGN entertainment who are also the owners of IGN.com, as well as the OTHER in-game instant messaging client, Gamespy Comrade. And the turf that these two opponents are currently battling on? None other than EA’s controversy-riddled Battlefield 2142.
Xfire has been asking for a restraining order which will prevent the release of Battlefield 2142 since the chat client it uses, Gamespy Comrade, has a feature which illegally infringes on Xfire’s copyrights. The culprit feature is Comrade’s Buddy Sync which retrieves a user’s friends list from other IM clients, such as AOL and Xfire, by reading a certain file in the program, and then visiting a URL on the AOL or Xfire site which goes something like “http://www.xfire.com/friends/username”. The handles that are found on that URL are then compared to IGN’s own list of Xfire handles that are already registered Comrade users, and if there are any matches found, the user will then be given the option to invite these people to their in-game friends list.
So, the dialogue so far goes this way…
Xfire: The release of the game could harm Xfire by infringing their copyrights, disclosing trade secrets (a.k.a. the user’s friends list), and taking away Xfire users in favor of GameSpy Comrade.
IGN: Xfire has no copyrights to a user’s name or their list of friends since the name and the lists are created by the users. Also, they say that “the alleged ‘secret’- a user’s own screen name and friends list – is prominently posted on a publicly accessible area of Xfire’s own website…”, so which trade secret are they giving away?
EA: the game’s release is strategic, and if delayed any further, will cost them since the delay may reduce the game’s sales by at least half. A delay would also put them in a bad light with retailers and consumers, all of whom have no connection to the dispute between Xfire and IGN.
But in the end, a woman settles everything.
District Court Judge Susan Illston: No restraining order for Xfire, because apparently Xfire “had not demonstrated probable success on the merits of the case, but had ‘raised serious questions as to the merits of at least some of its claims.'”
IGN 1, Xfire 0?
And the circus just keeps rolling on as yet another lawsuit is being filed, right smack in the middle of I’ll-see-you-in-court season. With the Sony vs. Lik-Sang case still pretty fresh on our minds, this time around, the show will star in-game instant messaging provider Xfire and IGN entertainment who are also the owners of IGN.com, as well as the OTHER in-game instant messaging client, Gamespy Comrade. And the turf that these two opponents are currently battling on? None other than EA’s controversy-riddled Battlefield 2142.
Xfire has been asking for a restraining order which will prevent the release of Battlefield 2142 since the chat client it uses, Gamespy Comrade, has a feature which illegally infringes on Xfire’s copyrights. The culprit feature is Comrade’s Buddy Sync which retrieves a user’s friends list from other IM clients, such as AOL and Xfire, by reading a certain file in the program, and then visiting a URL on the AOL or Xfire site which goes something like “http://www.xfire.com/friends/username”. The handles that are found on that URL are then compared to IGN’s own list of Xfire handles that are already registered Comrade users, and if there are any matches found, the user will then be given the option to invite these people to their in-game friends list.
So, the dialogue so far goes this way…
Xfire: The release of the game could harm Xfire by infringing their copyrights, disclosing trade secrets (a.k.a. the user’s friends list), and taking away Xfire users in favor of GameSpy Comrade.
IGN: Xfire has no copyrights to a user’s name or their list of friends since the name and the lists are created by the users. Also, they say that “the alleged ‘secret’- a user’s own screen name and friends list – is prominently posted on a publicly accessible area of Xfire’s own website…”, so which trade secret are they giving away?
EA: the game’s release is strategic, and if delayed any further, will cost them since the delay may reduce the game’s sales by at least half. A delay would also put them in a bad light with retailers and consumers, all of whom have no connection to the dispute between Xfire and IGN.
But in the end, a woman settles everything.
District Court Judge Susan Illston: No restraining order for Xfire, because apparently Xfire “had not demonstrated probable success on the merits of the case, but had ‘raised serious questions as to the merits of at least some of its claims.'”
IGN 1, Xfire 0?