Bobby Prince, the well-known designer on a variety of games, has filed suit against Valve, Gearbox and several other high-profile names in the games industry over alleged copyright infringement. Prince has worked in the games industry for a long time, racking up quite the resume of titles that he has contributed to. The stable of video games which feature his work include Duke Nukem 2, Doom, Doom II: Hell on Earth, Duke Nukem 3D and many more. And in particular interest today is Duke Nukem 3D. You see, the original version of the vulgar shooter was developed in 1996 on the iconic Build engine, and was released through a partnership between Apogee Software and 3D Realms. The smash-hit shooter was what originally spawned the development on Duke Nukem Forever, which of course went on to live in infamy for entirely different reasons unrelated to Duke Nukem 3D, But what we’re concerned about today is an often forgotten about part of making games, licensing.
You see when you make a game, you often have to look to other people outside your own efforts to create art and audio assets. This process of procuring music, models and so many other components has been massively streamlined today, but in 1996 the efforts of getting music for games were far more convoluted. And when you release a new game, or even re-release an older title as was the case with Duke Nukem 3D, you have to work out a deal with the various people who contributed effort and assets to make sure those people are fairly compensated. Usually, this will involve a licensing agreement that sees a fee for services rendered, plus a royalty for future use of those created assets, paid to the creator. It’s this last point that’s a problem now, as it appears that Gearbox and the rather controversial Randy Pitchford haven’t fairly compensated Prince for his work on the original game.
Prince accuses Gearbox and the others names in the suit of having used his music without permission in the Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour. You can read the document here.
Sixteen of Prince’s songs were used in the Duke Nukem 3D, under an agreement with the original developer. “Apogee had a limited right to use Mr. Prince’s music in Duke Nukem 3D in exchange for a royalty equal to $1 per unit sold.”
“The electronic files for the music within Duke Nukem 3D World Tour include text specifically stating that Mr Prince owns the copyright to the music and has reserved all rights to the music’s use. Yet Gearbox incorporated the music into the game without ever contacting Mr Prince and without clearing the rights expressly mentioned in the electronic files.”
Now to be clear, the suit is still in the very early stages, with only the initial filing having been completed. And since the initial agreement goes back more than a decade, there may have been some issues with finding the agreement and enforcing it. Trouble is, Prince alleges that Pitchford and Gearbox were both aware of the agreement, and allegedly chose to ignore it.
“Valve ignored a takedown notice, thus waiving any immunity under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and continued distributing infringing copies of the music despite knowing that Mr Prince owned the copyrights in the music”.
Whether Pitchford, Gearbox and/or Valve are complicit is unknown, Of course, there’s already plenty of reasons for everyday gamers to dislike Randy Pitchford in particular, like “innocently” sharing animal cruelty videos online, but that’s just the start of things that he has allegedly done which draw ire. Point is, a lot of people are going to side with Prince on this one.
So whatever is going on here, be sure to keep an eye on this one over the next few weeks.
