Valve Wins In Vivendi Case

As noted on the Steam website, the U.S. Federal District Court in Seattle, WA has granted Valve a summary judgment when it comes to their cyber cafe suit against Vivendi. The judge's order can be read here, but Valve also sends along a statement that you can understand without being a lawyer.

Judge Thomas S. Zilly ruled that Sierra/Vivendi Universal Games, and its affiliates, are not authorized to distribute (directly or indirectly) Valve games through cyber cafes to end users for pay-to-play activities pursuant to the parties' current publishing agreement. Valve games such as Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and the recently released Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source are all popular in cyber cafes. In addition, Judge Zilly ruled in favor of the Valve motion regarding the contractual limitation of liability, allowing Valve to recover copyright damages for any infringement as allowed by law without regard to the publishing agreement's limitation of liability clause. "We're happy the court has affirmed the meaning of our publishing contract. This is good news for Valve and its cyber cafe partners around the world," said Gabe Newell, founder and CEO of Valve. "We continue to add value to our program and we look forward to working with cafes to get them signed up and offering Valve's latest games to their customers."