Warner Bros. Fights 'Mortal Kombat II' Source Code Leak
GitHub has removed a recent "Mortal Kombat II" source code leak following a request from Warner Bros. Discovery. The leak purportedly reveals unused artwork and an alternative storyline for the iconic arcade game, first released by Midway in 1993. Three decades later, the current rightsholder seems keen to plug the leaks.
[...] Warner Bros. and NetherRealm are not solely focused on new content, they're very protective of historical rights as well. That became apparent over the past few days after the 1993 source code for Mortal Kombat II leaked online.
The leak was met with excitement by gaming history fans, who discovered unused artwork and an early or alternative storyline.
The files in question were posted to a GitHub repository by the user account 'Historical Source,' which has leaked many other game assets in the past. While many of those remain online, Warner Bros. was quick to object.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 11, @11:00AM (3 children)
I guess if they want to maintain control of the trademarks (not copyright IIRC) then they need to insist on this sort of take down. I guess the probability today of a sequel is low, but who knows what tomorrow may bring; so the lawyers say "take it down".
(Score: 4, Informative) by NateMich on Wednesday January 11, @02:24PM (1 child)
They've been releasing sequels to Mortal Kombat for decades.
"Mortal Kombat 11, was released in 2019"
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday January 13, @08:59AM
Who would have thunk it.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday January 11, @06:13PM
I didn't bother to google, but I think you're right. If they let everybody xerox stuff, the executives will end up going through a whole box of kleenex.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday January 11, @02:04PM (2 children)
It's a bit weird but as noted it's a trademark thing since they contain the characters that are still in the game. Still how long was it up for and how many people managed to make a duplicate of it during that time. It's out there and will now resurface and get traded around by the already interested.
Still one would think it was a bit weird to post it without consent. After all they, historical sources, have source code for a bunch of other old old games including several Sierra online adventures.
https://github.com/historicalsource [github.com]
(Score: 2) by tekk on Wednesday January 11, @11:13PM (1 child)
I've wondered about this for a bit, maybe we have a lawyer on the site who could chime in, but could they not just authorize the use? "This github repo and its forks may use these characters as they were in 1993 for the purpose of historical preservation and education" or whatever
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday January 11, @11:44PM
I don't know but I doubt it. Considering that anyone can fork anything on Github and they can download anything and use in other projects that are then not on Github. That said it would seem it is a bit late to try and protect actual Mortal Kombat II (and other things) as far as code and assets go, after all there are clones and copies of the actual game(s) for various systems already, MAME romes are not hard to come by either etc.
While they are not source code all the assets can be ripped out and such. So I guess all they have left is try to uphold the law and the image of the story and characters. After all they are a lot more valuable these days then some early 90's source code for a game everyone can play at their leisure for free these days anyway. In that regard I think the graphics, characters and story are more valuable then the actual source code, from a lawyer perspective at least.
The Historical Sources doesn't really appear to do much with the stuff they have, it's just there as a repository for others to have a look at. Preservation and showcase of how they did it back in ye' olden days. But I could be wrong about that, but I think that is the intent of the place.
(Score: 1) by dwilson98052 on Wednesday January 11, @07:23PM
Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere.