Talk:Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp.

A good start, but a fundamental misreading of the Case

Jorahm, I think its wonderful that you are tackling this interesting case, but you seem to have misunderstood what was actually adjudicated here. Atari v. North American Philips did not reach a verdict and did not set any precedents as a matter of law. What happened was that Atari (and Midway) sued North American Philips for infringement and requested a preliminary injunction against selling the game while the case was adjudicated. The trial court held a hearing on the matter in which several witnesses testified and several exhibits were introduced into evidence before denying the motion based on its finding that the harm to NAP would be irreparable, and the likelihood of Atari winning on the merits was small. Atari appealed the ruling, and the 7th Circuit applied the substantial similarity test to conclude Atari was likely to prevail on the merits of the case and ordered the imposition of the temporary injunction pending trial. The case then went back to the trial court to proceed towards a final disposition. The case dragged on into 1984 and apparently settled, for a trial was never held and a verdict was never issued. There really was no point in NAP continuing to pursue the case by that point, as the opportunity to make any money on the game had long since passed. Several sources that did not understand judicial procedure mistakenly thought the pre-trial motion hearing was actually a trial, but it was not. Some rewrites will need to be done to accurately convey these events and their results. Indrian (talk) 23:16, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

• Also, you may not be aware that the surviving documents from the case were scanned and placed online a few years back. That should help immensely in getting a handle on the case. Indrian (talk) 23:31, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

• Indrian I don't take it personally. I'm summarizing the sources on this. The game media sources are sloppier than the legal readings. I'll try to fix some of the worst offenses if it's not considered WP:OR to "correct" the sources. Jorahm (talk) 18:31, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
• ... oddly enough I can't find a citation for the fact that this case settled. I was so confident that it was already in this article. But once I noticed it was missing I tried to look for that, to no avail. For differing reasons, the commentators seem to ignore the actual outcome of this dispute. Jorahm (talk) 19:45, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

• Right, that is why I say "apparently settled." The extant court documents do not seem to indicate a final disposition, which is odd. So it could have been a settlement or a voluntary or involuntary dismissal. It definitely did not go to trial though or proceed to a verdict. Indrian (talk) 17:38, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

• Indrian, I would like to try getting this to good article status. I know some of the sources are wrong or misleading... do you have any advice for how to fix this? i.e.: are there statements that I should change or even remove? or is it something I should add to clarify? Jorahm (talk) 18:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp./GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Moabdave (talk · contribs) 22:57, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I am reading this article now and spot checking some sources. I'll have a full review later. Dave (talk) 22:57, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

• I will of course leave it to the reviewer to do their review and make their determination as to promotion, but I do think its important to point out that the article is factually incorrect in one pretty big way right now, which is something I also brought up months ago when the nominator first started improving the article. Right now, the article claims that "the decision establishes that copyright protection does apply to expressive content in video games" and that "Atari v Philips found that the defendant had infringed the plaintiff's expressive content." It did not make such a determination because this was an interlocutory appeal ruling on a preliminary injunction. The 7th Court of Appeals itself stated in the opinion reversing the district court on the injunction ruling that "The district court's conclusion that the two works are not substantially similar is clearly erroneous, and its refusal to issue a preliminary injunction constitutes an abuse of discretion. Since this is an interlocutory appeal, however, we are mindful that our holding does not constitute a conclusive adjudication of the merits of plaintiffs' claim." So while the court did establish that the substantial similarity test should be applied and hinted strongly at their feelings about the merits of the case, they did not render an opinion "that the defendant had infringed the plaintiff's expressive content." The case never went to a verdict after it was remanded. Indrian (talk) 23:27, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

{od}GAC reviewer chiming in here. This is something that would need to be resolved without starting an edit war (as article stability is a criteria) before I could pass the GAC. However, I've read the article, and reading this, very valid, complaint, it so far appears to me that at worst only a couple of key words are in dispute, so this could be resolved with some discussion without affecting a GAC, provided everybody acts promptly, and in good faith. So again, my initial concerns, based only off an initial read and the comments both here and on talk are big concerns, but likely only affect 3-4 sentences in the article, the rest is pretty clear and easy to follow. Dave (talk) 00:01, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

• So you know, neither of us have edit warred, and we have both been in agreement that we want to get it right. No hostility whatsoever, and the article is stable. I just did not want a GA to go through without pointing out this one factual point because a lot of the secondary literature gets it wrong. The unfortunate fact is, we don't know the final disposition of the case. A settlement seems likely, but the court document is not around. The case was still active in 1984, however. A researcher actually went to the Federal Archive in Chicago and scanned all the extant documents for the district court case. Indrian (talk) 00:26, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Not accusing anybody of edit warring per say, just saying this can be resolved without it. That begs 2 followup questions, and both are based on my suggestions above. What is that date referring to in the infobox? It sounds like that date needs to go. Second, What can be safely said about the finality of the case without venturing into speculation? I did read the last two case files in the link you posted. They don't answer that question. Dave (talk) 07:10, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

GAC Criteria

1 - Well Written - Some issues found

"After the decision of the United States Court of Appeals" isn't accurate as there was no decision. Perhaps "With the injunction granted Philips was barred...."

This phrase" "Atari v Philips found that the defendant had infringed the plaintiff's expressive content" similarly isn't accurate. Perhaps "The preliminary motion found the defendants had likely...."?

The infobox currently says: "Decided March 2, 1982" with no further explanation. Based on the discussion here that also is likely inaccurate. Is this the date the injunction was granted? or the date the case was dropped? or other? This either needs to be explained in text, with sources, or removed.

Aside from these issues I enjoyed reading the article and it was easy to follow.

• I fixed this. I made sure it was clear that the decision was about the motion and not an ultimate ruling. I left the date and clarified it in text. Jorahm (talk) 17:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

2- Verifiable - Passed. I found issues but fixed them myself.

Here are the claims I chose for a spot check, source numbers are using the current version as of the timestamp of my sig below:

Source 3- "Illegal Games". Hardcore Gamer Magazine: Volume 5, Issue 1. June 2009.

Passed, however took several minutes to find it on page 28 of a 61 page PDF. As a friendly suggestion, add page numbers to citations like this.

Source 10- "The Fighting Game Capcom Tried To Get Pulled From Arcades". Kotaku. Retrieved 2021-02-28.

Passed

Souce 22- Eyman, Douglas; Davis, Andréa D. (2016-04-06). Play/Write: Digital Rhetoric, Writing Games. Parlor Press LLC. ISBN 978-1-60235-734-1.

Problem noted: This book is a collection of essays, and the citation text does not mention which essay. I found it in Essay number 8, authored by Scott Nelson and titled "Intellectual Property Pong:Three Classic Matches That Affect Your Play Today" . I've never cited anything to a book that is a collection of essays before, so I'll ask for a 2nd opinion on how to handle that and get back to you. Also this source explicitly states "Judge George Leighton presided over the case, and in his ruling....". So I presume this was the ruling of the lower court? Shouldn't this information be added to the article?

Fixed. Dave (talk) 23:17, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Source 1 -Graham, Lawrence D. (1999). Legal Battles that Shaped the Computer Industry. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-56720-178-9.

Passed.

• Thanks for fixing the essay citation. Jorahm (talk) 17:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

3-Broad in its coverage - Needs Improvement

The final disposition of the case is not clear in the text as it exists today. Per the discussion above and on the talk page implies this is because the final outcome is not known, and some gaming sources have missed or confused some key details. So I accept there is a fine line to walk between addressing an unanswered question in the article and what can be stated without delving into speculation. Source 1 offers the best explanation of the finality of the case of the 4 I spot checked. Here's a suggestion involving a direct quote from that source. Feel free to use, or reject or comment as you see fit:

"The case did not proceed in the courts after the injunction was granted. In explaining the situation, a lawyer who used this case as a step in the evolution of copyright law for video games stated, "As a practical matter, the award or denial of a preliminary injunction often ends the case because one of the required elements to be proven to obtain a preliminary injunction is likelihood of success at trial". (which clarifies it was never ruled upon but leaves the outcome vague enough to not suggest anything not supported by sources)

• I worked this in. Jorahm (talk) 17:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

4-NPOV: Pass

5-Stable: Pass

6-Images:Pass. I'm a bit out of my league as I've never used a court exhibit as an image in an article before, and am not familiar with the copyright status of court exhibits. However, I'm taking it on faith the image was uploaded on commons with a pd status in January, per the page history on commons the image page has been edited by at least one other experienced user, and nobody there has contested the pd status. Dave (talk) 23:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Review finished. Please advise if I can be of further assistance. Dave (talk) 23:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you for your review. Real life is having me pretty tied up right now but I plan on getting to this within another week. I will make sure to fix the problems with writing and coverage. I am in agreement with Indrian about making this more factual. It has been hard because the sources do not cover this and where they do cover it they are misleading. I am still trying to get a straight answer on how to address this without getting into original research. I do see your recommendation and I will follow that when I get back to this unless anybody has anything else to say. Jorahm (talk) 13:19, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• I think I finished my work on this. Tell me what you think. I am tagging Indrian too for their feedback. I tried my best to cover this without a definitive source about how this case ended up and made it clear that this focuses on the motion without a definitive ruling. Thank you for helping. Jorahm (talk) 17:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I like how you reworded various sentences to address the case finality, and those issues are resolved to my satisfaction. For me the only issue remaining is the date in the infobox. As the article stands now, the infobox says Decided:March 2, 1982 (again with no source or explanation), but the article text now says appeal heard on March 3, 1982, which appears to contradict the date in the infobox. So I'm going to stick to my guns that needs to be addressed in some fashion. Also, I'll give Indrian a few days to chime in if their concerns are resolved. Dave (talk) 00:23, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

*blinks hard* I don't know how I blew it. I fixed the date and cited it to the actual case if you want to check.[1] You can tweak it further if you think the language needs to be more precise. What do you think? Jorahm (talk) 15:32, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

No worries. I've been there a few times myself. Ok, I'm happy. Let's give it say 2 more days to give @Indrian: a chance to chime in to see if his concerns are resolved, pending no major catastrophes found in that time, I'll pass the GAC. Good luck, Dave (talk) 17:53, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for pinging me, and thanks to both of you for your hard work on this review. I am satisfied that the factual issues regarding the disposition of the case have been cleared up, so I have no further concerns. Indrian (talk) 22:32, 4 April 2022 (UTC)