The game made by Toronto-based Ketara Software got reamed by the internet masses for releasing a game that looks and plays exactly like flOw, originally made by Jenova Chen for free in Flash and later for the Sony PS3, has been yanked from the iPhone app store by Ketara themselves. The company states "Because the game seemed to be upsetting so many, we have decided to remove it completely. We will also make sure nothing like this ever happens in the future."
The issues arose because the game was originally released without crediting or acknowledging Jenova Chen and/or flOw anywhere, be it the store, their website, or any documentation. Ketara maintains that because they wrote the code themselves "from scratch", they did not feel they needed to mention Chen or flOw anywhere.
Regardless of having coded the game from the ground up, there are definite issues of copyright infringement that were going on with Aquatica. The idea that because they didn't use any of Chen's original source code (which he did make available to people who asked nicely) they didn't violate any copyrights is absurd. An obvious comparison would be the stroke-for-stroke imitations of a famous painting, or even someone recording their own version of a song in their basement. Both would violate numerous copyrights (unless, of course, the copyrights had expired in the territories where the remakes were created), regardless of the painter using her/his own brushes and paint, or the musician recording his own play through into her/his computer.
What do you think? Did Ketara cross the line, or do you think that creating a near-duplicate of someone else's work was OK in this case? Either way, shame on them, considering they claim to be "dedicated to writing unique and creative computer graphics software". A video of Chen's flOw is below for you to make your own comparison.
via 1up
2 Comments
1 the 1 console wrote:
'Aquatica' is a transparently plagiarized edition of Jenova Chen's signature flash and PS3 creation 'flOw' and while 'Aquatica' may not be judged illegal in a court of law it is clearly shameful and deserves to be judged harshly in the court of public opinion.
Not only does 'Aquatica' speak to a serious error in judgement by the staff at Ketara, it also implies a deep lack of respect for Jenova Chen and pioneering creators everywhere. Ketara have distinguished themselves as a studio of ill repute and this issue is an unfortunate stain on Canada and Toronto's otherwise solid reputation.
THE 1 CONSOLE encourages Ketara to issue a full apology and to seek to make amends in future.
THE 1 CONSOLE also commends Ryan at abootplay.ca for bringing this issue to light.
2 Ryan wrote:
hilariously enough, I neglected to include the "via 1up" until about 10 minutes after I posted this. Thank them, I'm just the re-messenger.