Problem here is Nintendo doesnt have much to sue them on. They were even pretty careful about how they named the project. Naming it Spaghetti Kart and making no references to Nintendo or even Mario Kart.
They can sue if they can prove that the code wasn’t reversed engineered in a clean room. Meaning nobody who wrote code looked at the original code. One person or group examines the software and writes the specifications and another group implements the specification without the teams interacting with each other. And usually a lawyer has to be involved and review the specification. The separation of teams is called the “Chinese Wall”
And depending on interpretation of the law if the people writing code used a decompiler that can be seen as breaching the “Chinese Wall” since the implementation is then not based solely on the specification but based on the original code.
It doesn’t matter that they have no basis for a lawsuit. Nintendo starts a lawsuit, no matter how ridiculous, and the developer has to pay a lawyer to defend or they lose to default judgement.
The US isn’t like EU. Everyone pays their own costs whether you win or lose. If you win, you can then start a new lawsuit to recover legal costs but that costs more money and you aren’t guaranteed to recover the money.
Edit: I don’t understand the downvote. It’s exactly how the US system works. I experienced it with a contractor. Contractor took the money and didn’t finish. I sued and won. He then sued saying he was owed all that money back for absolutely no reason. Of course it didn’t even go to trial but I still had to pay my lawyer to defend myself. Otherwise it would have been a default judgement for him.
There’s no precedent. Nintendo sues, the developer doesn’t have money for lawyers to defend themselves so they remove it.
That’s how it’s been going for a long time.
Problem here is Nintendo doesnt have much to sue them on. They were even pretty careful about how they named the project. Naming it Spaghetti Kart and making no references to Nintendo or even Mario Kart.
They can sue if they can prove that the code wasn’t reversed engineered in a clean room. Meaning nobody who wrote code looked at the original code. One person or group examines the software and writes the specifications and another group implements the specification without the teams interacting with each other. And usually a lawyer has to be involved and review the specification. The separation of teams is called the “Chinese Wall”
And depending on interpretation of the law if the people writing code used a decompiler that can be seen as breaching the “Chinese Wall” since the implementation is then not based solely on the specification but based on the original code.
It doesn’t matter that they have no basis for a lawsuit. Nintendo starts a lawsuit, no matter how ridiculous, and the developer has to pay a lawyer to defend or they lose to default judgement.
The US isn’t like EU. Everyone pays their own costs whether you win or lose. If you win, you can then start a new lawsuit to recover legal costs but that costs more money and you aren’t guaranteed to recover the money.
Edit: I don’t understand the downvote. It’s exactly how the US system works. I experienced it with a contractor. Contractor took the money and didn’t finish. I sued and won. He then sued saying he was owed all that money back for absolutely no reason. Of course it didn’t even go to trial but I still had to pay my lawyer to defend myself. Otherwise it would have been a default judgement for him.