Grand Theft Auto // Strickland Vs. Sony

Box cover art for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City(2002)

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is an action adventure open world game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games released in 2002 for Sony PlayStation 2 and in 2003 for PC. It is the sixth entry in the much acclaimed, popular and controversial Grand Theft Auto series. The game is set in the 1980s Miami esque city known as Vice City featuring the protagonist Tommy Vercetti and his underworld driven adventures.

Upon release, the game received critical acclaim, with praise particularly directed at its music, gameplay and open world design. However, the game also generated controversy, with criticism directed at the depiction of violence and racial groups. The game sparked lawsuits and protests while being labelled as violent and explicit. Vice City became the best-selling video game of 2002 and has sold over 17.5 million copies.

In 2005, attorney Jack Thompson filed a lawsuit against Sony Corporation of America for the wrongful deaths of police officers Arnold Strickland and James Crump and dispatcher Leslie Mealer. Devin Moore shot and killed all three victims after grabbing an officer's gun while being detained for car theft. Thompson claimed that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was to blame for the deaths because Moore was trying to recreate scenes from the controversial video game.

Facts:


 Devin Moore was convicted in 2005 for the 2003 shooting of 2 police officers and a dispatcher as he was being detained for allegedly stealing a car. He grabbed one officer's .45 caliber pistol and killed all three before fleeing the station in a police cruiser he stole from the station. He was eventually caught and sentenced to death by lethal injection. On August 12, 2005 Thompson officially filed Strickland vs. Sony. The third victim's family later joined the lawsuit.

On Tuesday, November 1, 2005, Thompson sent an email to various websites commenting on the opening day of the civil trial. In it, he compared Sony and Take-Two Interactive's sale of the Grand Theft Auto video game to Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. According to Thompson, certain regional governments in Japan had prevented the sale of the Grand Theft Auto games to minors, though Sony continued to sell the game where its sale was not restricted in Japan and abroad (Microsoft is doing the same for its own video game console). Thompson also compared the distribution of violent games to the distribution of pornography

The Alabama Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit under Sony and Rockstar’s First Amendment rights.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pong // Magnavox Vs. Atari

Image
Gameplay screenshot of the arcade game Pong(1972) In 1972, Atari’s electronic table tennis game  Pong  became a bonafide craze—and Ralph Baer, inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey gaming console, sought legal action against Atari. Baer claimed that Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell had copied Magnavox’s version of electronic Ping-Pong after Bushnell played the game at a Magnavox dealership demo a few months before  Pong  was released. Facts: In 1975 Ralph Baer and Magnavox, creators of the first home console system – the Magnavox Odyssey – sued Atari (and many other companies) for their clones of the Magnavox Odyssey’s ‘Tennis’ game. The Atari game in question was ‘Pong.’ Due to the patents held by Baer and Magnavox parent company Sanders Associates, and coupled with the fact that there was ample evidence of Atari founder Nolan Bushnell having played ‘Tennis’ at a product exhibition, Atari decided to settle the case outside of the courts. Other companies were also forced
Read more

Pac-Man and K.C. Munchkin // Atari Vs. Philips

Image
Gameplay screenshot for the arcade game Pac-man(1980) In the early 1980s,  Pac-Man  was the most popular video game in the world, and its manufacturers, Namco and Midway, were developing a home version port of it for the Atari 2600. But a year before Atari’s release, Magnavox and Philips Electronics debuted the video game  K.C. Munchkin , which resembled Pac-Man’s gameplay, for the Philips Videopac home console. While  K.C. Munchkin  was not a direct clone of  Pac-Man , its winding levels and its ghost-like monsters bore an uncanny resemblance to the Atari game. In 1982, Atari sued Philips for copyright infringement and an appellate court found that Philips had copied  Pac-Man . The Court’s ruling was the first to recognize how copyright law would apply to the look and feel of computer software. Facts: The court noted many differences and similarities between PAC-MAN and K.C. Munchkin, which are reproduced in their entireties below. However, what is interesting in this ca
Read more

New Super Mario Bros Wii // Nintendo Vs. Burt

Image
Artwork For New Super Mario Bros.Wii For Nintendo Wii New Super Mario Bros. Wii  is a  2D side-scrolling   platform video game  developed and published by  Nintendo  for the  Wii .    It is a sequel to  New Super Mario Bros.  for the  Nintendo DS  and a part of the  New Super Mario Bros.  series. It was released in 2009. In November 2009, 24-year-old Australian James Burt purchased a copy of  New Super Mario Bros. Wii  several days before its release, as the store had mistakenly put it up for sale early, and ripped and uploaded the game disk online. Nintendo took down the game and sued Burt shortly afterwards, accusing him of violating copyright laws and depriving Nintendo of potential sales. The case was ultimately settled in January 2010, with Burt receiving a fine of AU$1.5 million as compensation for lost sales, as well as an additional fine of AU$100,000 as a part of Nintendo's legal fine.  The file was downloaded more than 50,000 times over the course of five d
Read more