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Kong in Court
Though it might seem to be a fitting plot for an episode of the sitcom Night Court, Universal Studios, the creator of the 1929 film King Kong, thought that Donkey Kong infringed on its copyright for the character and the name King Kong. Though the film was more than 50 years old at the time, Universal felt that its stop-motion animated classic was being defamed by this new interactive media, so the company sued Nintendo. Universal also sued Coleco for making the ColecoVision version. Coleco settled out of court. Nintendo, however, wouldn't budge. During a meeting between Nintendo of America's president, Minoru Arakawa, and Universal's company president, Sid Sheinberg, Nintendo laid down the law and told Universal it wasn't giving in to the suit. After all, the movie was more than half a century old, black and white, and a significant part of popular culture. Universal, from Nintendo's perspective, had nothing to lose.
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The case promptly went to court. Universal claimed that its copyright was still valid and that the idea of a man climbing a building to save his girlfriend from a giant ape was at its core the theme of Universal's movie. Nintendo's defense, in a nutshell, was that King Kong's copyright was outdated and that Donkey Kong didn't resemble the movie anyway. The judge who presided over the case ruled that Universal no longer had a claim to King Kong and knew this when it filed suit against Nintendo. So as well as losing the case, Universal had to pay Nintendo a $1.8 million penalty fee for wasting the time of both the court and the video game giant.
