Capcom Wins Dead Rising Copyright Case
You’ve probably forgotten about this story by now but earlier this year the producer of George Romero’s classic 1979 film Dawn of the Dead filed a lawsuit against Capcom claiming that Dead Rising violated copyright law. The two do have a large degree of similarities; both being set in a shopping mall in the midst of a zombie attack where the survivors use everything from chainsaws to propane tanks in their efforts to survive.
Fortunately for Capcom given that the title is being ported to Wii soon the case was dismissed. United States Magistrate Judge Richard Seeborg granted Capcom’s request to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the producer’s company (MKR Group) failed to establish enough similarity between the two, saying that “rather, the few similarities MKR has alleged are driven by the wholly unprotectable concept of humans battling zombies in a mall during a zombie outbreak.”
Many of the points that MKR made were rather spotty at best, including that “many of the zombies wear plaid shirts” and that when the word ‘hell’ is used in Dead Rising it’s referencing a tagline from the posters promoting Dawn of The Dead. It seems to be a bit of a backhanded victory however as part of the reason the judge dismissed the case was that he saw no evidence of social commentary in the game.