Judge shoots Dead Rising lawsuit in the head

by Alexander Sliwinski { Nov 19th 2008 at 6:00PM }

US Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg has dismissed MKR Group's lawsuit claiming that Capcom's Dead Rising infringed on the copyrights of its horror film, Dawn of the Dead. The judge agreed with Capcom's argument that the few similarities that MKR Group could cite were overridden by "the wholly unprotectable concept of humans battling zombies in a mall during a zombie outbreak."

The best part is that the judge sided on one issue with Capcom in the most back-handed way possible. MKR alleged as one of its complaints that the two works were parodies of rampant consumerism. Seeborg wrote in his decision that the theme of Dead Rising is "confined to the killing of zombies" in an attempt to discover the cause of a zombie infestation, and "the social commentary MKR draws from Dawn of the Dead, in other words, appears totally absent from the combat focus found in Dead Rising." We see the judge's point that the "theme" of consumerism isn't throughout the game, but it certainly is the catalyst for the events. You want spoilers, check the Wiki page.

Tags: capcom, dawn-of-the-dead, dead-rising, george-romero, lawsuit, mkr-group

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jose @ Nov 19th 2008 6:19PM

I think judge just wanted an excuse to play video games.

"Yeah, it's for work honey, I'm not to be interrupted while I'm playing. Yes I have to use the push lawn mower for this part, don't ask questions about the case!"

BigD145 @ Nov 19th 2008 6:24PM

Even if the theme of consumerism was in both works, that just makes both works a parody of reality. The zombie theme itself parodies real people, so I guess MKR should sue all future zombie creations and it should be sued by all past zombie creations. Once that's done, we the people should sue all zombie creators.