Homa wins Voodoo Plagiarism trial
The Paris Court of Appeal has cleared the French mobile publisher Homa of all charges brought by Voodoo. The latter claimed that the hyper—casual Craft Island game developed by Ducky Games studio — the "daughter" of Homa - copies its Lumbercraft.
On the left — Craft Island; on the right — Lumbercraft
Voodoo filed a lawsuit against Homa in March 2021 shortly after the release of Craft Island. In June of the same year, the Commercial Court of Paris found Homa innocent, but Voodoo appealed in an attempt to defend her point of view.
According to Voodoo, Craft Island borrowed some of the mechanics from Lumbercraft. These include, for example, tree felling, log harvesting and construction. The games are also visually similar: both are made mainly in blue, yellow and green colors, and their characters are low—poly men.
Voodoo has attached the results of a survey conducted by the marketing company Bilendi to the lawsuit. 1004 people participated in it. 78% of respondents agreed that Craft Island and Lumbercraft are very similar to each other. 66% of respondents also called Craft Island a copy of Lumbercraft.
In addition, Voodoo emphasized that Homa released Craft Island two months after the release of Lumbercraft. This time was enough for the authors of Craft Island to copy everything.
The court disagreed with Voodoo's arguments. He came to the conclusion that the games are not as similar as they seem at first glance. There are enough differences in them to avoid confusion.
The court ordered Voodoo to pay €40,000 each to Homa and Ducky Games as compensation for financial damage, as well as to pay separately to Ducky Games €15,000 as moral compensation.
