It doesn’t skimp on gore,
the new ‘Mortal Kombat’ movie is
no flawless victory: Reviews 2021
Hi Friends,
You can see ‘Mortal Kombat’ Tests Its Might With Fan Service and Crowd-Pleasing Spectacle. The current revolution in computer technology has created a legal battlefield for superhuman warriors combating briefwielding attorneys over profits from digital interactive video games.
Release date: 23 April 2021
Director: Simon McQuoid
Budget: $50 million
Box office: $10.7 million
Adapted from: Mortal Kombat
A recent court opinion holds that the copyright holder of a digitally created derivative work, based on a digitized version of a recorded performance in which the actor consented to appear, has rights superior to those of the actor in the original work.1 This opinion potentially affects the rights of performers, or their estates, to protect and profit from the performers likenesses and celebrity status, as well as on the rights of copyright holders who use digital technology to create new products from existing works.
The motion picture industry should not overlook the significance of this holding, as these video game works use the same medium as that used to produce motion pictures. Defendant Midway is an industry leader in the design, manufacture, and sale of video games in coin-operated arcade and home video formats.The plaintiffs were martial artists or dancers who agreed to pose and perform scripted movements,which would be used to develop the phenomenally successful video games known worldwide as Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II.Initially, Midway used videotaping techniques to capture the plaintiffs movements. Later, as the production process became more sophisticated, they used direct computer image capture. The plaintiffs videotaped performances were converted from analog to digital form through a process called digitization.
From the digitized version, a software programmer carefully selected images and bits of movement and incorporated them into computer source code code eventually used in the coin-operated arcade and home video versions of Mortal Kombat. In Mortal Kombat II, Midway recorded the plaintiffs performances in digital format, and the selection of images and bits of movement followed. The process permitted the programmers to add special effects, change facial features, and cobble non-sequential movements to create linear performances.
Midway owns the registered copyrights to the computer source codes for the games. The plaintiffs attacked Midway in two separate federal court suits. Plaintiffs admitted to authorizing the capture of their performances and the use of their names, images, and personas in the form of signature movements for the coinoperated arcade formats, but they alleged that they did not consent to such use in the home video versions later released. Plaintiffs alleged that Midway s use of the plaintiffs names, likenesses, and personas in the Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II home video games was a violation of the plaintiffs common-law right of publicity. In Ahn, Midway punched back, arguing that the source codes were new works derived, in part, from performances recorded with the plaintiffs consent. Therefore, in Ahn, the court held that the plaintiffs right of publicity claims concerning the derivative works were preempted by the Copyright Act. Moreover, in Pesina, Midway insisted that the plaintiffs images and martial arts performances as originally recorded were so altered as to render them unrecognizable. Tackling a new adaptation of a beloved video game franchise still going strong since 1992 sounds like a Herculean task. With a little over twenty games across platforms, nearly one hundred characters, decades of mythology, and a cherished 1995 feature adaptation, the intersection to appease both longtime fans and brand new gets blurred quickly. Mortal Kombat ambitiously attempts to do it all, a conventional monomyth packed to the gills with fan service flair and thrilling fight scenes.