Assassin's Plead: Beiswenger's Ubisoft Lawsuit Dropped
Aw, bums. That batshit lawsuit against Ubisoft has been dropped. The one where the eccentric author/inventor/dreamer of a Christians-only enclave for the end times, John Beiswenger, accused Ubi of having stolen the silly Animus plot from his classic work of literature, Link. But Joystiq has spotted that he's abandoned his case for $5,250,000. Boo.
He'd have lost so spectacularly that the Earth would have cracked in two, but I always like to see such things get dragged through the courts. However, Beiswenger says it was just too expensive.
“I filed the Complaint and Motion for Preliminary Injunction in federal court because I believe authors should vigorously defend their rights in their creative works; otherwise, the laws protecting them simply have no purpose. Regrettably, the resources required to defend those rights are unavailable to many individual creators. As a result, rampant infringement is occurring with impunity.”
This is a "without prejudice" dismissal of his own case, meaning he can pick it up where he left off, should he raise the funds to do so. He's still awfully cross that his ideas from his obscure book were so rudely taken. Especially when he appears to believe those ideas are based in science, and has some sort of extraordinary plans to see them come to light. Along with his psychic device for predicting respiratory disease (I'm not exaggerating - he has a patent application for "Apparatus for Pre-symptomatic Health Monitoring"), a contagion monitor for spotting outbreaks of pandemics, and of course his special city for Christians only.
Just how certain he is that Ubi ripped him off is made clear by his lawyer, Kelley Clements Keller, in a rather punchy statement:
"My client's decision to exercise his right to voluntarily dismiss the action, without prejudice, in no way diminishes his stalwart conviction in the merit of his claims against Ubisoft. He is unwavering in his belief that many key components of the Assassin's Creed video game franchise infringe on many key components of his novel, LINK. We believe Ubisoft has engaged in egregious acts of copyright infringement and, should he choose to seek redress through the courts in the future, we remain confident that a trier of fact would agree."
This, I'd suggest, does rather open the door for Ubisoft to sue him right back, for slander.
Even more peculiar amongst all this is the suggestion that Gametrailers have settled. Gametrailers did nothing more than host a trailer made by Ubisoft for the game, so including them in the lawsuit was by far the most weird aspect of the claims. The terms of their settlement are, as seems to always be the case, undisclosed. But I can only presume they went, "Oh, sorry."
We've contacted Beiswenger, Ubisoft and Gametrailers for a comment on the rather strange affair.