Is Dead Rising a Dawn of the Dead Rip-Off?

The answer, according to a U.S. magistrate judge, is a resounding no.

You may recall some months back that Richard Rubenstein's MKR Group, the company that owns the rights to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, had brought a lawsuit against Capcom, the makers of Dead Rising. Their contention was that the zombie horror video game represented a direct copyright infringement on their intellectual property, since--like DOTD--it is set in a shopping mall and features humans fighting to survive a zombie uprising.

However, Judge Richard Seeborg, according to Gamespot, has ruled that the game is sufficiently different from the movie that no copyright infringement is evident. To quote the good judge:

"[MKR] has not identified any similarity between Dead Rising and any protected element of Dawn of the Dead. Rather, the few similarities MKR has alleged are driven by the wholly unprotectable concept of humans battling zombies in a mall during a zombie outbreak."

Bet Judge Seeborg never thought he'd be writing those words back in his law school days.

Furthermore, the judge determined that Dead Rising possesses none of the social commentary inherent in Dawn of the Dead. Yay, score one for mindless zombie killing!