IAAPA could be exciting this year, legal-wise...

Paging our resident amusement-expert attorney on site....

Seems that KMG is trying to do away with the multitude of knock-offs of their popular "Freak Out" ride. Sometime about an eternity or two ago, I returned from a trip to Branson and was all aflutter over a new-to-me flat ride, the KMG Afterburner. KMG later down-sized the ride a little, and came up with the highly-portable Freak Out.

A court in Holland has ruled in KMG's favor, that they own the copyright, and all others need to contract with KMG if they want to build a "too-similar" product. Well, pretty much everyone in the industry is building a product that meets that general description...so there may be some fireworks in orlando outside of Disney and Universal.

Copyright law internationally seems to be exceptionally tricky, and I'd be a little surprised if KMG gets all they want to get from this ruling...but stay tuned.

Linky: http://www.carnivalwarehouse.com/brnews/newsarticle.asp?ID=663

Wouldn't that be about patents and not copyright?

Unless the layout plans or schematics can be copyrighted, or something...

Jeff said:

Wouldn't that be about patents and not copyright?

I would have thought so, too, but not entirely sure how that stuff works in Holland (or even all of Europe perhaps?). I think the fact that these kinds of laws vary in terms of specifics and enforcement from country-to-country are extremely troubling in this futuristic time of global commerce.