Zynga Settles Copying Claim Dispute With Social Startup Vostu

Social games giant Zynga and Brazilian startup studio Vostu today announced they have settled their lawsuit, ending a six-month disagreement between the two companies. In a joint statement sent to Gamasutra, the companies said, "Zynga and Vostu have settled the copyright lawsuits and counterclaims against each other in the United States and Brazil." "As part of the settlement, Vostu made a monetary payment to Zynga and made some changes to four of its games. The parties are pleased to have settled their disputes and to now put these matters behind them." Back in June, Zynga filed a claim against Vostu, noting that Vostu was blatantly copying its most popular games. It said that Vostu "recognized Zynga's success and developed a scheme by which they would copy Zynga's specific business model and product strategy, including accessing, copying and using Zynga's copyrights in its games to create near-identical games and holding them out as Vostu games." A month later Vostu countersued, alleging that it was in fact Zynga which modelled its own games on those of others, and that the social giant was simply trying to cut out the competition. However, in August a judge granted Zynga a preliminary injunction against Vostu, ruling that Vostu had to remove its games within 48 hours of the ruling.