HARD COPY

Clones are a real issue for app developers, and part of King’s justification for protecting Candy Crush Saga, but they exist in a legal grey area. Should the law be doing more? “That’s one of the great legal questions in the game industry right now,” says Jas Purewal, “and opinion even among lawyers is as divided as it is among developers. In practice, quite a lot can be done legally to stop clones already, and in several cases those abilities have been used… However, legal claims can falter in the face of determined opposition from a developer or publisher who wants to fight a claim of cloning. Stronger laws might even the balance somewhat but they are unlikely to be a sufficient deterrent on their own.”