It seems pretty strange that they can do this. How does copyright even apply here, other than for the defendant? If I buy a book, I now own the artifact 100% and the first sale doctrine would tend to indicate that nobody else can tell me what to do with that book (with the caveat that I can't make more copies - the whole point of copyright).
So these folks bought a book and have figured out how to cut out a page and glue in another one. Seems totally OK.
Now they're selling a kit that helps you "mod" your book by teaching you how to cut out a page and replace it with another one. Still no problems IMO.
Could someone prevent you from running a service where someone mails you a book, you cut out some pages and replace them, and then mail it back? I don't think so.
These aren't great analogies obviously. But it's hard to understand how they have standing given that they sold the copies of the game already. Seems like they'd have better luck going on some kind of contractual violation like their EULA or their agreement you have to subject yourself to in order to connect to the game servers.
Fortnite's EULA [0] and virtually any EULA for any software produced in the past couple of decades includes the following bit:
The Software is licensed, not sold, to you under the License. The License does not grant you any title or ownership in the Software.
First sale doctrine does not apply. We don't own many things anymore. Books, music, software, movies—they used to be products you bought but now they are services you subscribe to. It is not a trend that I like.
It probably has something to do with the investment that would be required if the original item didn’t exist.
Suppose it costs you 10 million dollars to make product X, and you are able to make that money back barely (say 11 million). Then, someone else comes along and builds something quickly on top of your expensive investment and is able to make 5 million of their own. Wouldn’t you be mad? They’ve essentially found a low-effort way to make returns without taking any of the risk you did. Without you, they wouldn’t be able to do what they did unless they came up with the whole original item on their own and then built on top of it. Therefore, in essence they are profiting off of your investment.
The law may be significantly more complex and nuanced than this but it’s not hard at all to imagine scenarios where the original producer of a product does not want to enable profits of spin-offs from their work.
Edit: This is one reason patents exist. You are allowed to protect your massive investment for a period of time, no matter how much society may benefit from building on it immediately.
Your arguments come from a traditional point of view. With laws like the DMCA and it's successors, copyright is an entirely different beast when those copies are digital. You can't make more copies, but you also can't circumvent any copy protection in place.
> It seems pretty strange that they can do this. How does copyright even apply here, other than for the defendant? If I buy a book [...]
It might be significant that in this case it is not a book. Copyright is a bundle of different rights, and some of them usually only come up for certain kinds of media.
In particular, one of the rights in the bundle is the right to publicly perform the work. Perhaps broadcasting playing the game could violate the performance right?
> Could someone prevent you from running a service where someone mails you a book, you cut out some pages and replace them, and then mail it back? I don't think so.
I wouldn't be so sure. Here are two cases, both involving a company that apparently buys works of art, mounts them on ceramic, and sells the result.
In the first case [1] they bought books containing good quality prints, removed the prints from the book, mounted each print separately, and sold the tiles separately.
The 9th Circuit found that this was a derivative work and was infringing.
In the second case [2] it was apparently again the same company buying and mounting art. This time the works they bought and mounted and sold were notecards and small lithographs. The 7th Circuit said that this was not a derivative work and not infringing.
The lawsuit does also contain many claims of breach of contract, and goes beyond that, saying that they are also interfering with other peoples' contractual obligations since they have promoted something that has resulted in other people breaching the game's contract.
Putting the lawsuit under "Copyright infringement" is a strange choice, but I have to agree that fighting cheaters in video games is a good fight.
In one hand, the user should have ownership of their computer, and what happens in it. The user should not be prevented from testing and modifying whatever occurs in their memory, in the same way, I can load Adblock, or Reddit Enhancement Suit, to make my experience on a website better.
On the other hand, online gaming has become a sport. Having cheaters in-game is almost like bicycle racers using enchantment drugs for a competition. I would hate to lose a bicycle race for having another athlete using illegal unhealthy drugs, as I would have to lose an online game for other players paying hundreds of dollars for a significant unfair advantage.
For me, there should be a new kind of law that would cover gaming cheating behavior under unfair gameplay. Users are detracting from the experience from the other players, who are playing the game on an even playing ground.
I find GTV 5's strategy particular interesting, that instead of banning cheaters in online servers from playing, they just moved players to a "cheaters pool," in which cheaters can play with other cheaters. It still allows everyone to play the game, but now they are put up against other players who also have an unfair advantage, and have to compete for a better strategy.
The problem with that is, where would you law draw the line?
My main software is a digital copilot for starcitizen.
It does voice control, screen verlay and eventual screen grabs to load states. It perfrms nothing a skilled pilot cannot do, but makes it so almost anyone can match with those skilled pilots. Is it considered cheating when it makes me a much better pilot, faster reaction speeds and easily performing difficult movements?
What about my testers why are physically challenged in some way? There's no way they could keep up without my software, but I can understand the arguments that a pilot of equal skill vs one with my software will be at a large disadvantage.
It's a difficult thing to codify into law I believe.
This reminds me of a court case a decade ago when Blizzard sued the creator of a popular World of Warcraft botting program called MMOGlider on the grounds of copyright infringement. Blizzard won and was awarded $6m. Not a lawyer, but maybe there's some legal precedent?
That may help Golden Modz - in the appeal, the Ninth Circuit said it wasn't copyright infringement:
Were we to hold otherwise, Blizzard or any software copyright holder could designate any disfavored conduct during software use as copyright infringement, by purporting to condition the license on the player's abstention from the disfavored conduct. The rationale would be that because the conduct occurs while the player's computer is copying the software code into RAM in order for it to run, the violation is copyright infringement. This would allow software copyright owners far greater rights than Congress has generally conferred on copyright owners.
The Blizzard argument was that because the license is granted to you only under the EULA, breaking the EULA then becomes copyright infringement. That didn't hold up.
No, what worked for Blizzard was DMCA. Because they had an ineffective "anti cheat" system in place, somehow they found a judge willing to consider a bot evading that a violation of a DMCA copy protection device.
Good for Epic. Distributing hacks like this actively harms the game experience for everyone else and damages Epic's brand and business. It's not so dissimilar from DDoSing a SaaS company and encouraging others to do the same.
"Copyright infringement" maybe should stick if they hacks include reproductions of Epic's code, but "breach of contract and tortious interference" is a load of horse shit. Game EULAs are not the law.
I agree if they distribute modified binaries then the copyright could apply,
IMO creating the trainer/cheat program or instructions on how to cheat should be perfectly legal, the cheating though may breach the TOS but that would just terminate your license so your account should be banned from online mode, the only way Epic could win this if they distribute the modified binaries instead of some binary that injects itself into the original one.
I'm a bit perplexed anyone would pay that much money just to cheat in a videogame. What's the point? Are they just really sore losers with too much money? Do they get any money back from cheating?
I think it's similar to any other discretionary product where people pay for after market accessories or additional add-on real and cosmetic features.
People pay $$$'s to mod their sports cars with additional speed but drive them in urban areas. Or they'll add cosmetic exhausts for looks.
Gamers might want to skip levels or access advanced locked features without investing huge amounts of time. Gamers might also enjoy the thrill of playing the game in a way that it wasn't meant to - with hacks or cheats.
Pay-to-win and microtransaction models have proliferated the gaming industry over the past decade or so. I'd wager that purchasing of cheats/hacks appeals to the same sort of gamer.
Epic stop the cheats working, within 24hrs he has them working again. It’s a continual game of cat and mouse, and a kid over summer has way more disposable time than your average game developer. Eventually you can get to a stage where you make it too hard for some of the hacks to work - and then they just find another route.
You can sometimes make a valid copyright claim if they are using your game logos in their advertising, but unless you have the budget of Epic it’s pretty hard to even get an effectual site or YouTube video/channel take down.
Realistically a developer has little alternative than to attempt both code fixes and social ones - once a game has a reputation for being full of hackers it can quickly become the end of it (though again, probably less of a concern for Fortnite due to its scale and popularity)
Suing teenage brats is not an appropriate use of our legal system. I'm not sure of the policy implications but if someone brings an obviously frivolous suit they should pay a large fine. The legal system is being used to bully rather than dispense justice.
This 'brat' is no different than any other theif. If you defraud a company, and further, make a profit doing so, you deserve what you get. Don't excuse terrible behavior.
[+] [-] msandford|7 years ago|reply
So these folks bought a book and have figured out how to cut out a page and glue in another one. Seems totally OK.
Now they're selling a kit that helps you "mod" your book by teaching you how to cut out a page and replace it with another one. Still no problems IMO.
Could someone prevent you from running a service where someone mails you a book, you cut out some pages and replace them, and then mail it back? I don't think so.
These aren't great analogies obviously. But it's hard to understand how they have standing given that they sold the copies of the game already. Seems like they'd have better luck going on some kind of contractual violation like their EULA or their agreement you have to subject yourself to in order to connect to the game servers.
[+] [-] smnrchrds|7 years ago|reply
The Software is licensed, not sold, to you under the License. The License does not grant you any title or ownership in the Software.
First sale doctrine does not apply. We don't own many things anymore. Books, music, software, movies—they used to be products you bought but now they are services you subscribe to. It is not a trend that I like.
[0] https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/eula
[+] [-] makecheck|7 years ago|reply
Suppose it costs you 10 million dollars to make product X, and you are able to make that money back barely (say 11 million). Then, someone else comes along and builds something quickly on top of your expensive investment and is able to make 5 million of their own. Wouldn’t you be mad? They’ve essentially found a low-effort way to make returns without taking any of the risk you did. Without you, they wouldn’t be able to do what they did unless they came up with the whole original item on their own and then built on top of it. Therefore, in essence they are profiting off of your investment.
The law may be significantly more complex and nuanced than this but it’s not hard at all to imagine scenarios where the original producer of a product does not want to enable profits of spin-offs from their work.
Edit: This is one reason patents exist. You are allowed to protect your massive investment for a period of time, no matter how much society may benefit from building on it immediately.
[+] [-] snarfy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dxhdr|7 years ago|reply
Given that, why should it be okay to hack Fortnite, but hacking Netflix or Spotify would be considered criminal behavior?
[+] [-] tomohawk|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-edited_film
[+] [-] tzs|7 years ago|reply
It might be significant that in this case it is not a book. Copyright is a bundle of different rights, and some of them usually only come up for certain kinds of media.
In particular, one of the rights in the bundle is the right to publicly perform the work. Perhaps broadcasting playing the game could violate the performance right?
> Could someone prevent you from running a service where someone mails you a book, you cut out some pages and replace them, and then mail it back? I don't think so.
I wouldn't be so sure. Here are two cases, both involving a company that apparently buys works of art, mounts them on ceramic, and sells the result.
In the first case [1] they bought books containing good quality prints, removed the prints from the book, mounted each print separately, and sold the tiles separately.
The 9th Circuit found that this was a derivative work and was infringing.
In the second case [2] it was apparently again the same company buying and mounting art. This time the works they bought and mounted and sold were notecards and small lithographs. The 7th Circuit said that this was not a derivative work and not infringing.
[1] https://openjurist.org/856/f2d/1341/mirage-editions-inc-v-al...
[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/125_F3d_580.htm
[+] [-] VectorLock|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vhold|7 years ago|reply
https://torrentfreak.com/images/epic-golden.pdf
The lawsuit does also contain many claims of breach of contract, and goes beyond that, saying that they are also interfering with other peoples' contractual obligations since they have promoted something that has resulted in other people breaching the game's contract.
[+] [-] Nican|7 years ago|reply
In one hand, the user should have ownership of their computer, and what happens in it. The user should not be prevented from testing and modifying whatever occurs in their memory, in the same way, I can load Adblock, or Reddit Enhancement Suit, to make my experience on a website better.
On the other hand, online gaming has become a sport. Having cheaters in-game is almost like bicycle racers using enchantment drugs for a competition. I would hate to lose a bicycle race for having another athlete using illegal unhealthy drugs, as I would have to lose an online game for other players paying hundreds of dollars for a significant unfair advantage.
For me, there should be a new kind of law that would cover gaming cheating behavior under unfair gameplay. Users are detracting from the experience from the other players, who are playing the game on an even playing ground.
I find GTV 5's strategy particular interesting, that instead of banning cheaters in online servers from playing, they just moved players to a "cheaters pool," in which cheaters can play with other cheaters. It still allows everyone to play the game, but now they are put up against other players who also have an unfair advantage, and have to compete for a better strategy.
[+] [-] marak830|7 years ago|reply
My main software is a digital copilot for starcitizen.
It does voice control, screen verlay and eventual screen grabs to load states. It perfrms nothing a skilled pilot cannot do, but makes it so almost anyone can match with those skilled pilots. Is it considered cheating when it makes me a much better pilot, faster reaction speeds and easily performing difficult movements?
What about my testers why are physically challenged in some way? There's no way they could keep up without my software, but I can understand the arguments that a pilot of equal skill vs one with my software will be at a large disadvantage.
It's a difficult thing to codify into law I believe.
[+] [-] oliwarner|7 years ago|reply
Similar category to hacking. Stricter penalties.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wilsonnb3|7 years ago|reply
I’m having hard time thinking of a justification for the government fining you or throwing you in jail for cheating at a video game.
[+] [-] skylark|7 years ago|reply
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7645059.stm
[+] [-] icebraining|7 years ago|reply
Were we to hold otherwise, Blizzard or any software copyright holder could designate any disfavored conduct during software use as copyright infringement, by purporting to condition the license on the player's abstention from the disfavored conduct. The rationale would be that because the conduct occurs while the player's computer is copying the software code into RAM in order for it to run, the violation is copyright infringement. This would allow software copyright owners far greater rights than Congress has generally conferred on copyright owners.
[+] [-] stefan_|7 years ago|reply
No, what worked for Blizzard was DMCA. Because they had an ineffective "anti cheat" system in place, somehow they found a judge willing to consider a bot evading that a violation of a DMCA copy protection device.
[+] [-] dxhdr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koboll|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simion314|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xae342|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheAceOfHearts|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] weliketocode|7 years ago|reply
People pay $$$'s to mod their sports cars with additional speed but drive them in urban areas. Or they'll add cosmetic exhausts for looks.
Gamers might want to skip levels or access advanced locked features without investing huge amounts of time. Gamers might also enjoy the thrill of playing the game in a way that it wasn't meant to - with hacks or cheats.
[+] [-] meritt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tootahe45|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zbentley|7 years ago|reply
'Magical' powers = he was selling cheats.
That is not a comment on the substance of Epic's claims against these people; just on the clickbaity phrasing.
[+] [-] hiccuphippo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lvturner|7 years ago|reply
You can sometimes make a valid copyright claim if they are using your game logos in their advertising, but unless you have the budget of Epic it’s pretty hard to even get an effectual site or YouTube video/channel take down.
Realistically a developer has little alternative than to attempt both code fixes and social ones - once a game has a reputation for being full of hackers it can quickly become the end of it (though again, probably less of a concern for Fortnite due to its scale and popularity)
[+] [-] JoshuaAshton|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] nickthemagicman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snarfy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rukittenme|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] justtopost|7 years ago|reply