Valve triumphs over Vivendi with settlement
 

You may recall that Valve, the company behind the Half-Life series of games, had a bit of a disagreement with Vivendi Universal over distribution rights. Valve had sued Vivendi in August 2002, claiming breach of contract over Vivendi placing Valve games in cybercafes around the world. Sierra On-Line and Valve had a distribution agreement dating back to 1997, which gave Sierra broad manufacturing and distribution rights. Subsequently, the agreement was amended in 2001, in which Sierra relinquished all intellectual property rights and some online distribution rights to Valve titles. Sierra/Vivendi contended that Valve's usage of Steam as an online distribution channel undercut its retail distribution strategy — Valve had decided to compete with its distribution licensee via Steam, and the licensee didn't like it.

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