Bethesda hired Behavior Interactive under a work-for-hire contract to create the Fallout Shelter game. The terms of the contract stated that all work done by Behavior for Fallout Shelter became property of Bethesda, which included code, designs, artwork, etc.
Warner Bros hired Behavior to create the Westworld game. Behavior then allegedly used the same code that was used for the Fallout Shelter game. While the code in both games was potentially the sole work of Behavor, legally, what was used for Fallout Shelter legally belongs to Bethesda.
Being that Behavior is a game development company, is it feasible that they used in-house libraries for developing common game functions, such as animation, that could explain some of the similarities?
And if that's the case, and Behavior had ownership of the libraries prior to their contract with Bethesda, does usage of these libraries in Fallout Shelter therefore transfer ownership to Bethesda?
This is a constant concern with developers in embedded space (microcontrollers), afaik current consensus is rewrite everything when you sign exclusive contract, unless you put library reuse explicitly in writing.
Not a lawyer.... If any in-house libraries were used this becomes a problem if changes or updates to those libraries were written during development of Fallout Shelter. Any subsequent versions of those libraries would become tainted and verboten from use in other products. Even any fixes to those libraries after initial distribution to correct bugs in the game could reasonably be argued to fall under the contract.
In practice exclusivity restrictions demand a from-scratch product. Developers are cheaper than lawyers.
Bethesda hired Behavior Interactive under a work-for-hire contract to create the Fallout Shelter game. The terms of the contract stated that all work done by Behavior for Fallout Shelter became property of Bethesda, which included code, designs, artwork, etc.
Warner Bros hired Behavior to create the Westworld game. Behavior then allegedly used the same code that was used for the Fallout Shelter game. While the code in both games was potentially the sole work of Behavor, legally, what was used for Fallout Shelter legally belongs to Bethesda.