• Police Raid Square Enix Office

    by
    Freya
    Published on 08-06-2014 06:33 PM
    9 Comments Comments
    A criminal lawsuit was filed by SNK against Square Enix for copyright infringement causing the Osaka Police to raid the Square Enix Office in Shinjuku, Tokyo on August 5th. What on earth is going on? You may be asking this question because I know I am.

    Square Enix has a popular manga titled High Score Girl which is set in an arcade in the early 1990's and features various video game characters. A few of those characters being SNK Playmore's from King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown. In fact they had been used over 100 times.

    Recently the manga has been in talks to become an anime, and the animation studio had contacted SNK to ask about the usage of their characters and music in the show. Turns out SNK never even knew their content was being used in the first place!

    SNK state that they attempted to contact Square Enix about the copyright infringement but they did not receive a proper response, this then led them to file a criminal lawsuit against the company back in May with the Osaka police, that resulted in this recent raid.

    Investigations are still ongoing and more information will be provided about this incident after the interrogation and evidence inspection proceeds further.

    This is all very interesting as Square Enix themselves just cracked down on the fan made Final Fantasy Type-0 English translation patch for copyright reasons.

    What do you think about this recent raid on Square Enix?
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Square Enix vs SNK started by Depression Moon View original post
    Comments 9 Comments
    1. Freya's Avatar
      Freya - 08-06-2014, 06:08 PM
      I was just reading this! WHy SE, Why o' why did you not get approval to use other people's characters. You know better!
    1. Uchu's Avatar
      Uchu - 08-07-2014, 03:33 AM
      Well, all I can say is something strange is definitely going on. It sounds like a past deal fell through, or a personal falling out between head honcho's... strange stuff going on indeed, but unsurprising, unfortunately.
    1. Del Murder's Avatar
      Del Murder - 08-09-2014, 07:53 PM
      what the smurf
    1. Depression Moon's Avatar
      Depression Moon - 08-09-2014, 08:21 PM
      Hey, who changed the title of my thread?

      I think this is awfully weird, but if SE is found guilty I wonder what that'll mean for their games.
    1. Freya's Avatar
      Freya - 08-09-2014, 08:54 PM
      I did when I linked it with an article.
    1. Wolf Kanno's Avatar
      Wolf Kanno - 08-10-2014, 05:30 AM
      I'm kind of enjoying the irony of a company often bemoaned for their heavy handed protection of copyright being caught in a copyright infringement case themselves.

      Doubt this will have major ramifications, they'll get sued, settle out of court and have the copyright characters removed from the offending titles.
    1. Del Murder's Avatar
      Del Murder - 08-10-2014, 09:29 PM
      When have they been heavy handed with copyright protection?
    1. The Man's Avatar
      The Man - 08-10-2014, 09:34 PM
      Crimson Echoes, a fan-made ROM hack sequel to Chrono Trigger, is perhaps the most notorious case.
    1. Wolf Kanno's Avatar
      Wolf Kanno - 08-11-2014, 06:57 PM
      Not to mention the fan translation patch for Type-0, I think a few VII projects have been shot down as well, and the fan made 3D remake of Chrono Trigger to name a few. SE is pretty heavy handed about controlling their IPs even if they haven't been really utilized in years.

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