Blog:Ikegami and Me

CRV 08:58, 28 December 2010 (CST) [permalink] [comments]

"Dimitri" finally got ahold of Sore ha Pong kara Hajimatta: Arcade TV Game no Naritachi, the Japanese arcade history book cited as a source on our Ikegami Tsushinki entry, so now we can dig into it some more. There's an entire chapter about the legal issues surrounding Donkey Kong including the Ikegami episode, Crazy Kong, and King Kong. I hope this acquisition allows me to fix up the Ikegami entry as I'm not happy with it. (Am I ever?) Stay tuned.

Speaking of Crazy Kong, did you know Nintendo of America sued Detroit area company Elcon Industries, which was selling it Stateside, claiming copyright infringement as well as unfair competition? If you think "that string" (see Ikegami entry) could have been hacked in, think again. The defendants argued that Nintendo's copyright was invalid because Nintendo "failed to identify the true author [...] in its application to register a copyright." They contended that Ikegami must be the true author "because the name 'Ikegami Co. Lim.' appears in the computer program." Long story short, Nintendo prevailed, and a preliminary injunction was issued.

You can read the judgment for yourself on FindACase. Click on "Michigan," search for "Nintendo," and select "US District Courts of Michigan" under "Select Library." Said judgment is a "wall of text," but it's interesting. For example, according to it, NCL "hired Ikegami Tsushinki Co., Ltd. to provide mechanical programming assistance to fix the software created by Nintendo Co., Ltd. in the storage component of the game." Also, Falcon had a licensing agreement with Nintendo to sell Crazy Kong in Japan.

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