Although initially a court found no wrongdoing by Activision, following a lawsuit filed by Genius Products and Numark against Activision Publishing, today Genius Products announced that the Los Angeles County Superior Court has indeed granted it a Temporary Restraining Order, which must be complied with by the end of today. The court has ordered 7 Studios (recently acquired by Activision) to turn over to Scratch DJ Game LLC (the venture operated by Genius and Numark) all source code related to Scratch – The Ultimate DJ game, including the developer's pre-existing software tools and technology that went into creating the game.
"Despite arguments from Activision's counsel, the Court clearly concluded that the source code was the property of Scratch DJ Game LLC. The Court also granted an injunction preventing 7 Studios from disclosing or discussing the game code or Scratch trade secrets with Activision or any other third party. This decision by the Court is a setback for Activision which only acquired 7 Studios after Genius rejected Activision's offers to buy the Scratch game," noted Genius Products in a release. "Activision is now 'walled off' by the Court's order from discussing Scratch or its game code or confidential information with its own subsidiary, which had previously worked on Scratch for 18 months as a contract work-for-hire developer."
Genius and Numark went on to note that they will continue to "aggressively pursue" their case against Activision, 7 Studios and CEO Lewis Peterson.
The statement continued, "Scratch DJ Game LLC contends it will prove that, only after venture partner Genius rejected multi-million dollar offers from Activision for Scratch – The Ultimate DJ Game, Activision then used information it obtained under a non-disclosure agreement with Genius to buy financially struggling contract developer 7 Studios in order to delay and control completion and release of Scratch, which is to compete with the DJ Hero game Activision has announced it has under development. Scratch DJ Game LLC believes Activision's actions with regard to Scratch were clearly an attempt to prevent the game from getting to market ahead of its own prospective game, DJ Hero, or to exact a lower price for the Scratch game after it took control of the contract developer working for its competitor."
