Here's a snip of the rather complex press release, followed by my non-legalese assessment:
The judge, following his issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order in favor of Scratch, on May 7, 2009 further granted a preliminary injunction against Activision's subsidiary, 7 Studios, and ordered the turnover of all Work Product associated with Scratch – The Ultimate DJ game ("Scratch"), including all source code, work-in-progress and all Developer's Pre-Existing Tool and Technology, including the source code to 7 Studio's game engine. The Judge further confirmed in his injunction order that both 7 Studios and its new parent company Activision continue to be "walled off" from disclosing any aspect of the Scratch game or technology with each other or with any third party. The Court's actions on May 7, 2009 dealt with the final materials relating to the game's development that the defendant was still withholding, including the source code to 7 Studios' game engine and other Developer's Pre-Existing Tools and Technology.The PR ends with a statement by Jack O'Donnell, the Manager of Scratch and CEO of Numark:
We are very excited to finish Scratch - The Ultimate DJ. We hope that this clear victory ends the delay tactics employed by the defendants to date to stop our game from being completed and brought to market. We will continue to vigorously pursue our damages case against Activision, 7 Studios and Peterson resulting from their actions to delay and take over the Scratch game. With the injunction order, we will also now be able to move forward to complete and launch our much anticipated Scratch game.So here's the situation as I understand it. The two parties involved here are the Scratch DJ Game team (Genius and Numark) and Activision, which includes the recently purchased California 7. Activision is working on DJ Hero. Activision purchased California 7, which was helping the Scratch team develop their game but were hurting for cash. The newly purchased California 7 then refused to turn over their work to the Scratch team, resulting in legal action.
The judge called foul and issued an injunction, which forces a party to take a particular action. The court has told 7 Studios to turn over all the work they've done on Scratch - The Ultimate DJ over to Scratch DJ Game LLC, including their game engine and development tools. Since this tech was made as part of their work-for-hire agreement, the court feels that it belongs to Scratch DJ.
Gerald says: What does this mean for gamers? In all likelihood, they'll have two DJ games to choose from instead of just one.
