Sony first sued Bleem! in May 2000 for copyright infringement but Bleem! launched a counter-suit alleging that Sony was exercising an illegal monopoly over the video game industry.
At the time of the Bleem! case Sony had also brought a case against a company called Connectix which had launched a PlayStation emulator for the Apple Mac. Connectix lost its fight against Sony. Bleem! on the other hand successfully fought against a temporary injunction against sales of its emulator and defeated Sony in its fight to get a permanent ban on sales.
Visitors to Bleem!’s web-site now encounter a page featuring Sega’s Sonic The Hedgehog crying over Bleem!’s headstone and e-mailing the company is met with the automated response, “Thanks for e-mailing Bleem!, but we're history. Vapor. Kaput. Splitsville. Extinct. Gone the way of the Dodo. In a word, Dead.” The message concludes: “Seriously, send an email to [email protected] if you want to give us money, have a job offer for one or all of us, or have a good idea for what the heck we should all do next.”