WHAT HAPPENED WHEN CAPCOM TOOK THE FIGHT TO THE COURTROOM?

■ Street Fighter II is well-known for inspiring a boom period in arcade fighting games, with popular games such as Mortal Kombat, Virtua Fighter, Tekken and The King Of Fighters all launching within a few years of Capcom’s hit. But when Fighter’s History hit arcades in 1993, Capcom felt that Data East’s game was essentially a clone of its own and in 1994, it filed lawsuits seeking damages and a preliminary injunction to prevent distribution of the game. For its part, Data East had previously unsuccessfully sued Epyx over claims that World Karate Championship (better known as International Karate) had violated its own copyright in Karate Champ. In that case, Epyx had argued that the similarity between the two games was the simple result of making a game about karate, and Data East used a similar argument in its defence against Capcom. In his decision, Judge William H Orrick Jr agreed that Data East had intended to imitate Street Fighter II. The proposal for Fighter’s History contained 22 references to Capcom’s game, and the court determined that Matlok, Feilin and Ray were similar to Guile, Chun-li and Ken. However, many of Street Fighter’s moves were generic punches and kicks that could not be protected by copyright, and though some of Data East’s characters were similar, they were not virtually identical and the use of recognisable character tropes was permissible. Data East ultimately prevailed, and the ruling has since served as a reference point for which aspects of a game can be protected by copyright.