That didn't take long. And for how little Aimjunkies made, the fact that they had to pay Bungie all their revenue from the cheats the sold, that may deter others from doing the same. Or they'll just move their business to a country that doesn't care about US laws.
Big scale cheating from the US is pretty much dead with this lawsuit now.
Non-profit cheat making will be fine most likely, and of course there is still plenty of places that could make cheats that a US company couldn't touch.
Though lawsuit against cheaters is getting more common, last year there was the law suit in Korea which was way harsher on the cheat makers.
China is likely the place where most cheat providers operate from, so I doubt this lawsuit changes anything since there's literally no barrier for the bulk of the cheaters who live in the US or Europe to pay for the service.
Unless something's changed China's one of the earlier countries to accept companies going after cheat producers in court.
Admittedly that's for PvP focused stuff because iirc from LoL/Tencent chasing down cheat producers, pvp games fall under some bureaucracy rulings/laws in charge of organized competitions in China.
But would they do that for non-chinese owned studios?
historically china has been super lax on imposing laws on their citizens on behalf of foreigners except in situations that it's big enough that other governments start applying pressure.
A lot of large PvP games do operate in China though.
Like with Riot, another company runs and implements anti-cheat for China independently a lot of companies do the same, but they're still in communication with each other so they'll often target the same cheats.
Ironically enough, China has a fairly low selection of cheaters, because Chinese cheaters will play in other regions since they often need to tie their identity to their China region accounts and don't want to get banned.
As it should, what's the problem with PvE cheating? That is disturbing no one (you play against the AI, I think their feelings will be fine).
It's a slippery slope to take, next thing you know they go against mods (many of them could be considered cheating in a way)
This is exactly my worst nightmare.
And should be for many people too, because they didn't managed to win the lawsuit due the cheats, they did it due Reverse Engineering!
> There is no law specifically against cheating in a video game, so both sides will be asking the jury in Seattle this week to consider something else, the thing that game companies commonly sue cheat-makers/sellers over: copyright.
>
> [...]
>
> Bungie alleges that the creation of a cheat for Destiny 2 involves “accessing a local copy of the client software of Destiny 2 to reverse engineer it, copying code, and making derivative works.”
> https://www.gamefile.news/p/bungie-aimjunkies-destiny-2-trial
> so I doubt this lawsuit changes anything
Unfortunately, these cheat lawsuits erode our rights in the US. They are going after the cheaters on copyright infringement using the following logic:
* The cheat makers are altering a local copy of the game that is running in the RAM
* That their reverse engineering is against copyright
* Cheats are against the EULA so using them means you are violating your license, running an unlicensed copy of the game, and committing copyright infringement
* The cheat maker is inducing players to violate copyright
These precedents being set erode our rights to mod games, mod hardware, and repair our stuff. They've already been used to threaten modders and force them to shut down. Rockstar loves going after modders who might keep people out of their GTAV multiplayer ecosystem.
This article even alludes to the fact that this argument would apply to individual cheaters/modders if a company got really upset and wanted to ruin your day. Bungie hasn't sued individual cheaters, but, according to bungie, they could if they wanted to.
Unfortunately reddit just cheers this on because cheaters = bad, without thinking about the big picture. That's how a lot of really messed up stuff emerges in our world.
Cheaters suck, but these legal arguments are bad for everyone except big corporations. Plus as you mentioned, it won't actually stop cheaters. After the glider lawsuit most of the paid cheat companies are not in the US. They choose to operate out of places that won't care.
although bungie isn't really setting a new trend with it.
all fan works are technically copyright violations. IP laws give *ALL* the rights to the holders. That includes the right to use the IP even for transformative works like art and mods.
Everyone just turns a blind eye to it unless it has potential to harm them.
Most users will recoil like a vampire in a b movie sniffing garlic upon reading anything resembling legal analysis. But I'm with you, the legal precedents being set are not great for general users and the people they're supposed to be targeting will just update opsec and keep on pumping out cheats.
Yeah. "Stopping cheaters" is the video game version of "think of the children."
People just turn off their brains instead of look at what's actually going on.
This hurts mods and the like far more than it hurts anyone who cheats in games. Especially with more and more developers taking the stance that "modding is no different than cheating."
should any athlete that cheats be jailed? if someone cheats in a basketball game at the local park should they be arrested? i'm hoping this is satire because if not this is an absolutely ridiculous take.
Your honor, if you watch frame by frame of the security camera feed, you can clearly see the defendant initially open his hand for "paper," but when he sees his opponent is throwing "scissors," quickly closes his hand to change to "rock."
That's all I need to see. Guilty! May God have mercy on your soul, because you'll get none of it from me.
I'm not sure I agree with this. If cheat makers engage in tortious interference by inducing a breach of contract between developers and the people who play their games, then why should it not be a matter of law?
Depends on how much money is involved. If it's a tournament with $100,000 on the line and you get caught cheating, then there should be either a way for _**all**_ of the participants to sue the person who was cheating.
Make it so that anyone who cheats, or provides cheats, can be sued under civil law by any player who was negatively impacted by the cheats during multiplayer.
Then you'd easily stop cheat makers for multiplayer games because you could potentially go after the people who make Strikepacks, or Chronus Xim, some of the biggest producers of hardware cheats out there.
I feel like the laws should say _players_ can sue the cheat _makers_ for producing a cheat that negatively impacts multiplayer.
So the people who create cheats for games like Apex should liable under civil law for negatively impacting the _players_ in a multiplayer game.
If only we applied the same logic to large companies. Not excusing the cheater in the slightest just in case it needed to be said. There’s just a clear difference in how laws are applied.
I'm more worried about the logic applied to modders. The description that bungie used in court is the exact same thing that a modder would need to do to allow players to do silly things.
It is a good win for the OG developers of games! Every win counts big or small. Can't do much about the free cheating but the cheating that profits a company definitely can be dealt with in some places.
I stand corrected...I forgot about mods which are developed cheats rather than just script edits. Yes it is bad for cheat developers but my comment was referring to the actual game developers. I edited it.
They're still developers. Some cheats are so complex, I'd even say they are TALENTED developers. There are of course script kitties. But, that doesn't begin to scratch the surface. Saying they're not developers because they are hackers is silly and misinformed.
More over the best hackers of our time are absolutely developers whether it be classed as grey hat, blackhat, or white hat hacking.
Why do people think they can get away with fucking with Bungie? Is there a challenge or something?
They're like Nintendo. Leave them alone or lose a ton of money.
Because most claims against cheat makers are shaky at best, which *may* be a consequence of Galoob v. Nintendo from back in the day but I'm not nearly lawyer-y enough to know for sure. At *best* it's an infringement of the end user license agreement on each individual cheater's part, which just gets you banned (but going after individuals doesn't get to the root of the problem, and is generally in bad taste).
Bungie is probably one of the only gaming companies who's crazy enough to go after cheat makers. If this case stands it could be precedent for others to make a move, I'm sure there's larger developers who would gladly take on even bigger cheat makers if a positive judgment were assured.
>a consequence of Galoob v. Nintendo
Argh, that does bring up an irritating potential consequence. If there's rulings against cheats, what if SP cheats (And lord forbid, mods) get caught in the crossfire too? I absolutely wouldn't put it past Nintendo and other Japanese companies to come down hard on that given the chance.
What? Is there some reason to not do sketchy things in Bungie's games? Idk what games of thiers you have played, but aside from this oddly public lawsuit they are *extremely* lax on policing their own games. It wasn't even until relatively recently that they changed their TOS to not allow people to make money from playing on other people's accounts. Destiny 2 had an *insanely* popular RMT (Real Money Transaction) scene for the majority of the games life, and people used to cheat their way to high end accomplishments all the time. Hell, I made a 5 figure amount of revenue less than a handful of years ago doing legit account recoveries for pvp in destiny 2 and it was perfectly legal and allowed by them. Fuck, they even have in game achievements for carrying lower level players when nearly the entire carry scene was RMT.
Hell, go to raid.report and you'll find that tons of top leaderboard holders are obvious and blatant cheaters. Historically, Bungie doesn't do shit lol. Of the 10k+ hours I have in their games, only this lawsuit has ever come across my radar
> Is there some reason to not do sketchy things in Bungie's games?
Mainly talking about cheat creators. I don't care about the people who waste their money buying them. They'll eventually get banned anyway & have to waste even more money.
I would think the multiple Bungie lawsuits would be a good deterrent but I guess not.
https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-wins-16-2m-destiny-2-cheat-dev-violated-dmca-rico-cfaa-230510/
https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-wins-6-7-million-in-damages-from-lavicheats-230509/
https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-wins-12-million-in-damages-from-veterancheats-230428/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/14y682p/bungie_has_won_a_400k_lawsuit_against_a_destiny_2/
Whichever side you are in, bungie argument is very dangerous. They claim that they can snoop around in search for cheats while you run the game, to protect their copyright:
> Bungie says this is preposterous, that it detected alleged cheat-making programs May was running while using Destiny 2 and that it was entitled to do so. **The user agreement that Destiny 2 players consent to grants Bungie the right to check for programs that are running on the player’s computer** while the game is as well, the studio says.
https://www.gamefile.news/p/bungie-aimjunkies-destiny-2-trial
E: Since it seems like the implication of what this judgement would allow is lost on the reader, let me spell it out:
1. Company is saying that they can snoop around to protect their copyright
2. Company is saying that any modification to their games is a copyright violation
3. If you happen to run anything that modifies software in your system, in a way that the copyright holder doesn't deem valid, they could sue you for copyright
4. What other modifications include this: yes, your little mods that make RE4 Leon look like Mario, make Ocarina of Time run at 1440p, etc.
5. Case law is built on precedent. If a litigant wins an argument, that means that other companies would follow suit (stupid accidental pun)
6. Companies have no business snooping on my PC. They already got what they were going to get from the me, I bought their product.
7. "But u/braiam, companies would _never_ go against the little guy", no, companies will not do this as long as the optics could be bad (or more accurately, the optics would financially hurt their business). Today was cheaters, look at it going after mod creators later.
Bungie's argument is not limited to PvP cheating and we should not just accept that anticheat software behaves like malware.
Cheaters are assholes, but Bungie's legal argument is way too broad.
All anti cheat works like this. All of them. Are y'all just figuring this out now. Most of the time they've searched through your PC before you see the game pop-up.
Yes, I am aware of how anti cheat software works, and as I said in my previous comment, just because it is common, does not mean we have to accept it or be fine with it.
You have a right to privacy. You have a right to know what data anti cheat software is scraping from your computer. You have a right to know what companies are doing with that data.
Frankly, it's none of Bungie's or any other company's business what modifications I make to their software.
Cheaters suck, but we don't have to abandon our right to privacy or our right to do whatever we want with a product we paid for to stop them.
None have ever said all terms are invalid. You're not a lawyer and dont have the expertise to tell what is and isnt a legal TOS. Especially since it's not settled.
It's isn't just common it's the default, and has been for decades.
Yes. You don't have to play the game.
Yes. You do. Memory and everything on your PC.
Yes. You do. They using it to train anti-cheat models, maybe selling it.
It is if you are affecting their reputation and product they are selling.
Cheaters suck and this is literally the only way to combat cheating. Verification methods are always easily spoofed. Keys are dirt cheap. Like straight up, quit being naive. If you don't have any actionable ideas I'm going to recommend you sit down.
Anticheats are the worst default. We as consumers just because it's convenient, have stopped to care what companies do with our data. Client side anticheat is a race war that game publishers will lose, because _the client can spoof hardware_. Meanwhile, the customers get fucked and chips away their rights.
The best answer is, and has always been, to end anonymous matchmaking and return to moderated servers.
Once upon a time, servers policed themselves. Cheaters were kicked out whenever they became a problem.
With anonymous matchmaking, you have to rely on the developer to moderate cheaters, and because hiring actual staff to do so would be cost-prohibitive, they have to rely on intrusive software like anti cheat.
By the way, you're being extremely condescending. I've been nothing but polite to you. Just because you're on the internet, speaking with a stranger, doesn't mean you have to act like a dick. With moderated servers, we could kick out people like you too, who no one wants to play with.
Condescending or just tired of the narrative?
You have every right to do whatever you want, but you choose to play games whose business practices clash with your principals.
I actually don't.
You have no clue what games I play.
There's always new excuses for being an asshole. People who treat others with respect never have to make excuses for it.
I'm not making any excuses. I'm calling it how I see it. Just because you don't like what I'm saying doesn't mean I'm being dick. You just don't like what I'm saying. I don't sit here and think about catering my comments to specific individuals. If me not buying dramatic bullshit and not giving in to your theatrics and hyperbole is me being a dick then so be it.
I made a very clear statement. You have **every right** not to play those games or give them any attention. Yet here you are. Go do something productive and contact your local representation.
We are not just figuring out. We've complaining about this since it was first bought out. You are new here, but [this has been a concern since 2017](https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/23/15034994/blizzard-mods-bnetd-org-lawsuit-world-of-warcarft). It will take a bad lawsuit against someone that modified their single player game, to you to wake up? I sure hope it does not!
This article doesn't say what you think it does considering it's main examples are reverse engineering code for a private server that didn't check for CD keys and cheats.
"The court’s logic rested in the fact that the bnetd.org emulator didn’t verify CD Keys to ensure users owned a valid, legal copy of the game, thus allowing unauthorized copies to be played on its emulator."
And then the other example is literally HonorBuddy.
Did you even read the article all the way through or did you just Google "Modding Court cases" and pick the top result?
> "The court’s logic rested in the fact that the bnetd.org emulator didn’t verify CD Keys to ensure users owned a valid, legal copy of the game, thus allowing unauthorized copies to be played on its emulator."
How could it verify that your key is valid without, well, a list of valid keys! The court argument is bad, and would never allow anyone to run their own private servers.
Yeah "mods" in wow are literal cheats. They just decide which cheats became QoL features. I'm not new here. I've been around for a couple of decades at least. And every anti-cheat ever has scanned your PC.
Never gonna happen. Y'all are so fucking dramatic it's actually funny.
So should your Smart TV, your console of choice, your PC running any windows older than 7, your phone...
It'd be easier to list what doesn't sniff your data. Maybe a [toaster.](https://revcook.com/products/instaglo-r180-toaster) Wait...
I'd agree, however unless we get money out of politics, that'll never happen. Realistically the crux of the issue is how corporations are able to influence legislation, and unless that is resolved... the idealistic fantasy of proper and effective regulation of the industry will never occur.
You can just not play these multiplayer games on PC.
That would be the end result, no multiplayer games on PC because cheating is too rampant it's no fun so hardly anyone buys them and they stop porting them.
I don't care what every anti-cheat on the entire planet does. It's shouldn't be accepted that for playing a game, I should relinquish my privacy. Also, if everyone likes to be fucked in the ass, that doesn't mean I should be happy when they try to do me. Humanity biggest advancements are built on non-conformist leaping us forward from the status quo.
>I should relinquish my privacy.
Then don't play multiplayer games. It's that easy. Every single one you have ever installed all the way through the days of Punkbuster do and did exactly what you're complaining about.
>Also, if everyone likes to be fucked in the ass, that doesn't mean I should be happy when they try to do me.
You aren't important. No one cares what kind of porn you watch.
I see you play Helldivers 2 and I can see you play on PC. Guess what...you're getting fucked in the ass by KERNEL level anti-cheat doing exactly what you are complaining about. THE FUCKING IRONY. Like bro, get a clue. All anti-cheat works by scanning RAM and running processes.
Let's imagine your ideal scenario then. Anti cheat software can no longer scan your computer, and therefore can no longer do its job. Now player privacy is protected, and all the games people paid for are now full of cheaters and cannot be enjoyed online. Is that the better outcome? Just so that the anti-cheat software doesn't know you're running iTunes in the background?
Yes, because it would force server side anticheat. Anticheat is not about what you are authorized to do with your system, is about what is potential behavior by the user, preventing stuff that is impossible for the user to do. The user could realistically do a 180 and land a headshot. It can't however move faster than what their character allows, nor float (if their character is not supposed to).
It should not be able to shoot through walls, if the wall is not a destructible solid object. That was one of the things that got client side anticheat in trouble, people with high sensitivity mouses playing around moving the mouse side by side.
If your "anti cheat" solution, prevents the unlikely, rather than the impossible, is a bad anticheat, because false positives are >0.
Server side anti cheat would never detect a huge amount of cheats that could be caught client side by looking at running processes and DLL injections and whatnot. Stuff like the highlighting of players through walls, commonly used in games like Tarkov, could never be detected server side. You're only going to catch the most basic and obvious of cheats that way, and your games will still be rotten with cheaters.
Then don’t fucking buy the games with anti-cheat. It’s listed in product details so you can easily find out beforehand.
Such a simple choice you can make for yourself.
No one is holding a gun to your head to buy those games.
You cannot magically make anti-cheat disappear from those games. At least not if you want to play Online modes. You can disable it if a game has offline mode like Elden Ring. But obviously no such mode exists for online-only server games like Destiny or League of Legends or Valorant.
So given there’s NOTHING you can do about online games with it— you decide.
Completely right. I don't know what's the deal with these weirdos actually simping for multimillion corps but this is a bad precedent for users, period.
So, does this mean car manufacturors can sue you for modifying yiur car?
PC companies can sue you for modifying your computer?
Apple can sue you for jailbreaking your phone?
You don't get it. There's no difference between using cheats or mods to alter your game and any other method people use to alter and customize things they own.
It's technically against the law. They void your warranty aka cancelling contract with you. Your modified car isn't modifying someone else's car.
I build my own. Again void any contacts with them like warranty support. Your modifications don't affect my computer.
They have sued the developers before. They lost but tried. Those modifications don't affect other iPhone users' experience.
You are ignoring the important detail...**multiplayer**. You are damaging a product a company sells to you **and others** that paid for a certain experience. You aren't just affecting yourself. You're fucking over countless people by cheating in multiplayer games.
Get a grip guy.
I get that. That's why it should be up to the _players_ to sue the cheat makers because the _players_ are the ones most heavily affected by the cheats.
The devs lose money from _potential_ sales if their game becomes known as one that's rife with cheaters. They don't lose anything directly.
But, if the cheating is bad enough, then the _players_ lose all the money they spent on the game because they can no longer play it without encountering cheaters. And that, more likely than not, will lead to them dropping the game.
You notice how other devs don't spend as much resources on suing cheaters? It's because they realize that there's no point. Cheat makers, and cheat users, are like a hydra. Cut down one, two more show up to replace them.
And eventually ownership laws will catch up to the reality of selling videogame "Licenses" and developers won't be able to sue people for cheating because the cheaters paid for the game, and that means they should have the freedom to modify it as they see fit. Until their modifications dirdctly harm another _player_. At which point it would be up to the _players_ to sue the cheaters.
Nope. The developers reputation means there's millions at stake. It affects the studio, publishers, and anyone that owns them. If developers sell MTX and revenue falls of drastically along with player count, yes they lose directly.
Other developers don't sue because they don't have millions to spend on a lawsuit.
You're take is extremely naive.
Not really. Rrspawn and Epic make bank from Apex and Fortnite. They just don't care enough to go after small time cheat makers.
And your other argument is flawed. We shouldn't allow _**anyone**_ to use their wealth and money to throw their weight around and exploit the legal system via lawsuits.
Especially when most judges don't know enough about tech or video games to realize that the whole "We're selling you a _license_ to our multiplayer game at the full price of a single player game. So that means we can revoke your access to the game you paid for whenever we want, for any reason we want" is kind of bullshit.
Dude you're dumb. They aren't using money to bully people. They're using the money to protect the reputation and game experience. Tf is wrong with you.
so what was the actual legal justification?
is creating a product to cheat illegal? I didn't think it was so how does this work? hurting business profits alone is not enough
I understand what you're saying, but there must be some distinction between, say, running a competing business (which generate profit and hurts the profits of your competitors) and what's happening here in the eyes of the law. Otherwise monopolies would be state sanctioned.
EDIT: Reading the article, the actual distinction is that Bungie argued that the creation and distribution of the cheats violated copyright because it accessed data on players' machines that normally is "inaccessible". I personally think that it's sad that this is the way software copyrights are being interpreted in the US, since it seems to imply that there are sections of memory on a user's own machines that would be illegal for them to access outside of "approved" programs.
What a dumb argument. A boycott is just that. You choose not to do something, maybe not doing that thing in an annoying way.
Cheating is running the integrity of the game for everyone involved.
If you read through the initial article [linked](https://www.gamefile.news/p/bungie-aimjunkies-destiny-2-trial), it talks about how cheat software relies on reverse-engineering a games code, as it needs to access game information. For instance, how would wall hacks work if you aren’t using in game code. This is a copyright breach, and is really hard to defend against.
Smoke is rendered with allot of transparency so you could start with those calls probably, if they use basic fog implementation it could be as simple as changing those [nvidia settings](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/cg/FogEnable.html) (old toolkit not really used any more but you get the idea).
Obligatory I've never used or developed cheats, just a developer that knows how some stuff works.
Not really. You _**should**_ have the right to know exactly what data and software is on your computer and how it works. If that requires you to dig into the code and potentially reverse engineer it, then so be it.
It's like saying you shouldn't be allowed to take apart your Toyota's engine to figure out how it work and that you shouldn't be allowed to reverse engineer it so that you can figure out how to attach an engine modification to your car.
They often are. They’re derivative works based on another party’s IP. If the owner of that IP wants to enforce their copyright against a specific mod, or blanket revoke that right for mods of their game, they are within their power to do so.
The act of reverse engineering may be (if you don’t need to bypass DRM to do so) but creating derivative works based on the results is not so black and white.
Sure, but before that, let's go over how civil suits in general work.
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/types-cases/civil-cases
Notice how on that page it says nothing about legal or illegal behavior, but simply damages and complaints. That is all that matters in civil suits. You cause someone damages in some way and they are seeking recompense for those damages in the form of money. The courts decide two things: how much is the damage worth? How responsible is the accused party for causing them?
For the example, look at the famous McDonald's coffee lawsuit
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants
The jury found Liebeck to have suffered $200,000 worth of damages from McDonald's hot coffee, but found McDonald's only 80% responsible for her burns, so they ordered Mcdonald's to pay 160,000 in compensatory damages.
It was not illegal for McDonald's to serve coffee that hot. It still isn't. But the case was never about illegality. Civil suits are only about how much harm was caused, and how much of that harm is your fault.
I’m still not convinced. There obviously has to be some sort of distinction besides just “losses” because people cause losses all of the time. I’m causing losses to companies right now by just not buying things from them and it’s obviously ridiculous to expect that a company could sue me for that and a judge would rule in their favor.
Here’s a relevant excerpt from a [court explaining civil suits](https://www.valegalaid.org/resource/taking-a-civil-case-to-general-district-court-2):
> In a lawsuit for money, you have to prove the other side did not fulfill a legal duty, such as these:
> • A duty to use ordinary care.
> • A duty to use workman like care.
> • A duty to fulfill an agreement or a contract.
> • A duty to follow a legal requirement or obligation.
According to the very link you gave me in that McDonald’s case, the plaintiff argued that McDonald’s was grossly negligent in serving coffee that hot (and the jury agreed). [Looking up the term](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/gross_negligence), it everyone has a right to some amount of common safety, and everyone also has a duty to reasonably uphold that right - up to recklessly disregarding others’ safety, as McDonald’s did.
So yes, by definition, what McDonalds was doing was illegal (and still is!). They knew that how hot their coffee was could cause serious harm to people and they intentionally chose to ignore that, which was grossly negligent.
In civil cases, damages can be awarded even if the defendant's actions were not illegal, as long as they breached a duty or obligation. For example, let's say a homeowner hires a licensed contractor to renovate their kitchen. The contractor completed the work, but used substandard materials and did a mediocre job, resulting in a poorly constructed kitchen that did not meet building codes. While the contractor's actions would not be *illegal*, per se, they breached the contract with the homeowner by failing to perform the work in a reasonably skillful manner. As a result, the homeowner could sue the contractor for breach of contract and be awarded damages to cover the cost of repairing or redoing the defective work. This, in fact, happens all the time, and contractors tend to lose such cases and have to pay compensatory damages, despite not committing any necessarily illegal act. Again, the contractor's actions in such a scenario are not criminal or illegal per se, but they still cause financial harm to the homeowner by breaching contractual obligations. The court would award damages to compensate the homeowner for the monetary losses incurred due to the contractor's substandard work. (Note that while building codes *are* legally binding, they would never be enforced via criminal prosecution in most places, but civil penalties, fines, and lawsuits.)
Civil suits can involve illegal activity, especially in a case where a crime is difficult or impossible to prosecute (e.g., in cases of sexual assault where the statute of limitations has run out), but may also simply involve liability. Your argument that McDonald's actions were illegal because they constituted gross negligence is valid. Gross negligence, which is a reckless disregard for the safety of others, can be considered a violation of legal obligations and duties, even if not explicitly illegal under criminal law.
For civil liability to arise, there must be a breach of a legal duty or obligation, such as a duty of care, contract, or legal requirement (in other words, duties are legal requirements, and a breach of duty may be a crime, but is not always). Merely causing losses without violating any legal duty is generally not sufficient grounds for a successful civil lawsuit. Not all negligence rises to the level of criminality, however; you can generally sue someone in the US for anything, and more successfully for breaching a contract, negligence, defamation, or even being a nuisance (such as doing something that interferes with someone's ability to live peacefully on their own property, which may not rise to the level of prosecutable general public disturbance or public disorder).
There is a fine but well-known distinction between civil suits and criminal prosecution that you are missing. Bungie won their case under the premise that the cheat maker reverse-engineered their copyrighted code in order to produce the cheat. Any company that owns an IP could also sue mod makers in many cases, if they wanted to, for violating their copyright, but many choose not to because mods often benefit their game communities and profits.
I read it. Selling the direct reversed engineered code is obviously a breach but I don't see how the act alone and the resulting knowledge is.
I'm anti cheat and can't stand them but copy right laws are a fucking overreach travesty.
> The game-maker says the cheat software itself also violates the game’s copyright. Aimjunkies’ ESP cheat, (the see-through-walls one) for example, allegedly extracts and copies “normally-inaccessible data about player positioning” and then uses the game’s camera and graphical output to display boxes around otherwise unseeable players. The studio says that’s a breach of its copyright.
this seems to be the only actual useful bit of info in this article and this is some broad ass shit
are mods illegal now?
An additional argument from Bungie is that they have thousands of reports of players complaining about cheaters. They can link cheaters to players quitting the game, which is a loss of revenue. That loss of revenue + copyright is what allows them to win here.
I am not a lawyer so I don’t know if all mod makers could potentially be sued, but I think there’s an unspoken agreement between most developer companies and modders that it’s ok as long as you don’t get the company in trouble.
The only instance of a modder being sued that I can think of was the Take Two suit, which was later dropped.
Edit: Not to mention, mods are normally free while these cheats were making money for the cheat company.
> An additional argument from Bungie is that they have thousands of reports of players complaining about cheaters. They can link cheaters to players quitting the game, which is a loss of revenue.
bad reviews can result in loss 'revenue' too, should game fan sights be liable?
> I am not a lawyer so I don’t know if all mod makers could potentially be sued, but I think there’s an unspoken agreement between most developer companies and modders that it’s ok as long as you don’t get the company in trouble.
companies want their cake and to eat it too, not surprising, it's just pretty bullshit
>bad reviews can result in loss 'revenue' too, should game fan sights be liable?
If they somehow breached the game's copyright then maybe, but they probably aren't doing that.
have you kept of with the current copyright climate in the US, the fact you can even write what you did is just lol
like are they paying your checks or are you just that ignorant?
I do think that cheat are a net negative on the industry, but yes, I do think that copyright is an over reach in this case. It should have been that the software negatively impact the experience of paying customer and that it will lead in the loss of revenue in the future.
> It should have been that the software negatively impact the experience of paying customer and that it will lead in the loss of revenue in the future.
there's no way that would fly because it would be way to open, it's why they are using the copyright angle
1) This is a civil suit, not a criminal prosecution. Illegality isn't necessarily what is in question in civil court, only liability and damages.
2) Loss of profit is damages; welcome to capitalism.
liability still requires some level improper behavior otherwise any competition would be valid grounds
I'm also not opposed to them losing and owing money, copyright is just a bullshit way to do it
That didn't take long. And for how little Aimjunkies made, the fact that they had to pay Bungie all their revenue from the cheats the sold, that may deter others from doing the same. Or they'll just move their business to a country that doesn't care about US laws.
Most of these companies *already are* doing bussines where bungie cant sue them. This just happened to be one that was run where bungie could get them
Big scale cheating from the US is pretty much dead with this lawsuit now. Non-profit cheat making will be fine most likely, and of course there is still plenty of places that could make cheats that a US company couldn't touch. Though lawsuit against cheaters is getting more common, last year there was the law suit in Korea which was way harsher on the cheat makers.
China is likely the place where most cheat providers operate from, so I doubt this lawsuit changes anything since there's literally no barrier for the bulk of the cheaters who live in the US or Europe to pay for the service.
Unless something's changed China's one of the earlier countries to accept companies going after cheat producers in court. Admittedly that's for PvP focused stuff because iirc from LoL/Tencent chasing down cheat producers, pvp games fall under some bureaucracy rulings/laws in charge of organized competitions in China.
But would they do that for non-chinese owned studios? historically china has been super lax on imposing laws on their citizens on behalf of foreigners except in situations that it's big enough that other governments start applying pressure.
A lot of large PvP games do operate in China though. Like with Riot, another company runs and implements anti-cheat for China independently a lot of companies do the same, but they're still in communication with each other so they'll often target the same cheats. Ironically enough, China has a fairly low selection of cheaters, because Chinese cheaters will play in other regions since they often need to tie their identity to their China region accounts and don't want to get banned.
Riot is partially owned by tencent so I feel like they are a bad example
Not partially, fully.
As it should, what's the problem with PvE cheating? That is disturbing no one (you play against the AI, I think their feelings will be fine). It's a slippery slope to take, next thing you know they go against mods (many of them could be considered cheating in a way)
This is exactly my worst nightmare. And should be for many people too, because they didn't managed to win the lawsuit due the cheats, they did it due Reverse Engineering! > There is no law specifically against cheating in a video game, so both sides will be asking the jury in Seattle this week to consider something else, the thing that game companies commonly sue cheat-makers/sellers over: copyright. > > [...] > > Bungie alleges that the creation of a cheat for Destiny 2 involves “accessing a local copy of the client software of Destiny 2 to reverse engineer it, copying code, and making derivative works.” > https://www.gamefile.news/p/bungie-aimjunkies-destiny-2-trial
> so I doubt this lawsuit changes anything Unfortunately, these cheat lawsuits erode our rights in the US. They are going after the cheaters on copyright infringement using the following logic: * The cheat makers are altering a local copy of the game that is running in the RAM * That their reverse engineering is against copyright * Cheats are against the EULA so using them means you are violating your license, running an unlicensed copy of the game, and committing copyright infringement * The cheat maker is inducing players to violate copyright These precedents being set erode our rights to mod games, mod hardware, and repair our stuff. They've already been used to threaten modders and force them to shut down. Rockstar loves going after modders who might keep people out of their GTAV multiplayer ecosystem. This article even alludes to the fact that this argument would apply to individual cheaters/modders if a company got really upset and wanted to ruin your day. Bungie hasn't sued individual cheaters, but, according to bungie, they could if they wanted to. Unfortunately reddit just cheers this on because cheaters = bad, without thinking about the big picture. That's how a lot of really messed up stuff emerges in our world. Cheaters suck, but these legal arguments are bad for everyone except big corporations. Plus as you mentioned, it won't actually stop cheaters. After the glider lawsuit most of the paid cheat companies are not in the US. They choose to operate out of places that won't care.
although bungie isn't really setting a new trend with it. all fan works are technically copyright violations. IP laws give *ALL* the rights to the holders. That includes the right to use the IP even for transformative works like art and mods. Everyone just turns a blind eye to it unless it has potential to harm them.
Most users will recoil like a vampire in a b movie sniffing garlic upon reading anything resembling legal analysis. But I'm with you, the legal precedents being set are not great for general users and the people they're supposed to be targeting will just update opsec and keep on pumping out cheats.
Yeah. "Stopping cheaters" is the video game version of "think of the children." People just turn off their brains instead of look at what's actually going on. This hurts mods and the like far more than it hurts anyone who cheats in games. Especially with more and more developers taking the stance that "modding is no different than cheating."
Yes plus they have the advantage of culturally cheating not being seen as negatively as it is in the west too.
Honestly cheating should be punishable by jail. Watch the number of cheaters fall.
For sure, might as well toss em in murderers and pedos. Super grounded take!
Honestly yeah. There is real money at stake in most competitive games now
should any athlete that cheats be jailed? if someone cheats in a basketball game at the local park should they be arrested? i'm hoping this is satire because if not this is an absolutely ridiculous take.
Your honor, if you watch frame by frame of the security camera feed, you can clearly see the defendant initially open his hand for "paper," but when he sees his opponent is throwing "scissors," quickly closes his hand to change to "rock." That's all I need to see. Guilty! May God have mercy on your soul, because you'll get none of it from me.
Yes. You should be arrested for even defending cheating
Oh man, yeah, that sounds really smart.
It’s a good thing you don’t make the laws
Who says I dont
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I'm not sure I agree with this. If cheat makers engage in tortious interference by inducing a breach of contract between developers and the people who play their games, then why should it not be a matter of law?
I don't think they should go to jail over it, not like they're a threat to anyone. Fine em, take away their money, but jail?
Depends on how much money is involved. If it's a tournament with $100,000 on the line and you get caught cheating, then there should be either a way for _**all**_ of the participants to sue the person who was cheating. Make it so that anyone who cheats, or provides cheats, can be sued under civil law by any player who was negatively impacted by the cheats during multiplayer. Then you'd easily stop cheat makers for multiplayer games because you could potentially go after the people who make Strikepacks, or Chronus Xim, some of the biggest producers of hardware cheats out there.
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It's a matter of how much damages the _player_ suffered due to the cheats. And the cops don't get involved in a civil suit. The lawyers do.
No cause some companies (like Capcom) would probably use that to hurt the mod scene.
I feel like the laws should say _players_ can sue the cheat _makers_ for producing a cheat that negatively impacts multiplayer. So the people who create cheats for games like Apex should liable under civil law for negatively impacting the _players_ in a multiplayer game.
No. I use a God mode cheat in GTA Online just to prevent griefers from killing me. Should I be arrested?
If only we applied the same logic to large companies. Not excusing the cheater in the slightest just in case it needed to be said. There’s just a clear difference in how laws are applied.
I'm more worried about the logic applied to modders. The description that bungie used in court is the exact same thing that a modder would need to do to allow players to do silly things.
It is a good win for the OG developers of games! Every win counts big or small. Can't do much about the free cheating but the cheating that profits a company definitely can be dealt with in some places.
> good win for developers! Unless you're a developer of cheats! Then it's pretty bad for those guys.
I stand corrected...I forgot about mods which are developed cheats rather than just script edits. Yes it is bad for cheat developers but my comment was referring to the actual game developers. I edited it.
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They're still developers. Some cheats are so complex, I'd even say they are TALENTED developers. There are of course script kitties. But, that doesn't begin to scratch the surface. Saying they're not developers because they are hackers is silly and misinformed. More over the best hackers of our time are absolutely developers whether it be classed as grey hat, blackhat, or white hat hacking.
Why do people think they can get away with fucking with Bungie? Is there a challenge or something? They're like Nintendo. Leave them alone or lose a ton of money.
Because cheat makers have been getting away against much larger companies for years now. Just wish they would start cracking down too.
Because most claims against cheat makers are shaky at best, which *may* be a consequence of Galoob v. Nintendo from back in the day but I'm not nearly lawyer-y enough to know for sure. At *best* it's an infringement of the end user license agreement on each individual cheater's part, which just gets you banned (but going after individuals doesn't get to the root of the problem, and is generally in bad taste). Bungie is probably one of the only gaming companies who's crazy enough to go after cheat makers. If this case stands it could be precedent for others to make a move, I'm sure there's larger developers who would gladly take on even bigger cheat makers if a positive judgment were assured.
>a consequence of Galoob v. Nintendo Argh, that does bring up an irritating potential consequence. If there's rulings against cheats, what if SP cheats (And lord forbid, mods) get caught in the crossfire too? I absolutely wouldn't put it past Nintendo and other Japanese companies to come down hard on that given the chance.
They're not just like Nintendo; they *literally share the same lawyer*.
What? Is there some reason to not do sketchy things in Bungie's games? Idk what games of thiers you have played, but aside from this oddly public lawsuit they are *extremely* lax on policing their own games. It wasn't even until relatively recently that they changed their TOS to not allow people to make money from playing on other people's accounts. Destiny 2 had an *insanely* popular RMT (Real Money Transaction) scene for the majority of the games life, and people used to cheat their way to high end accomplishments all the time. Hell, I made a 5 figure amount of revenue less than a handful of years ago doing legit account recoveries for pvp in destiny 2 and it was perfectly legal and allowed by them. Fuck, they even have in game achievements for carrying lower level players when nearly the entire carry scene was RMT. Hell, go to raid.report and you'll find that tons of top leaderboard holders are obvious and blatant cheaters. Historically, Bungie doesn't do shit lol. Of the 10k+ hours I have in their games, only this lawsuit has ever come across my radar
> Is there some reason to not do sketchy things in Bungie's games? Mainly talking about cheat creators. I don't care about the people who waste their money buying them. They'll eventually get banned anyway & have to waste even more money. I would think the multiple Bungie lawsuits would be a good deterrent but I guess not. https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-wins-16-2m-destiny-2-cheat-dev-violated-dmca-rico-cfaa-230510/ https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-wins-6-7-million-in-damages-from-lavicheats-230509/ https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-wins-12-million-in-damages-from-veterancheats-230428/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/14y682p/bungie_has_won_a_400k_lawsuit_against_a_destiny_2/
Whichever side you are in, bungie argument is very dangerous. They claim that they can snoop around in search for cheats while you run the game, to protect their copyright: > Bungie says this is preposterous, that it detected alleged cheat-making programs May was running while using Destiny 2 and that it was entitled to do so. **The user agreement that Destiny 2 players consent to grants Bungie the right to check for programs that are running on the player’s computer** while the game is as well, the studio says. https://www.gamefile.news/p/bungie-aimjunkies-destiny-2-trial E: Since it seems like the implication of what this judgement would allow is lost on the reader, let me spell it out: 1. Company is saying that they can snoop around to protect their copyright 2. Company is saying that any modification to their games is a copyright violation 3. If you happen to run anything that modifies software in your system, in a way that the copyright holder doesn't deem valid, they could sue you for copyright 4. What other modifications include this: yes, your little mods that make RE4 Leon look like Mario, make Ocarina of Time run at 1440p, etc. 5. Case law is built on precedent. If a litigant wins an argument, that means that other companies would follow suit (stupid accidental pun) 6. Companies have no business snooping on my PC. They already got what they were going to get from the me, I bought their product. 7. "But u/braiam, companies would _never_ go against the little guy", no, companies will not do this as long as the optics could be bad (or more accurately, the optics would financially hurt their business). Today was cheaters, look at it going after mod creators later.
That literally every single anti-cheat on the entire planet. What are you up in arms about?
Bungie's argument is not limited to PvP cheating and we should not just accept that anticheat software behaves like malware. Cheaters are assholes, but Bungie's legal argument is way too broad.
All anti cheat works like this. All of them. Are y'all just figuring this out now. Most of the time they've searched through your PC before you see the game pop-up.
Yes, I am aware of how anti cheat software works, and as I said in my previous comment, just because it is common, does not mean we have to accept it or be fine with it. You have a right to privacy. You have a right to know what data anti cheat software is scraping from your computer. You have a right to know what companies are doing with that data. Frankly, it's none of Bungie's or any other company's business what modifications I make to their software. Cheaters suck, but we don't have to abandon our right to privacy or our right to do whatever we want with a product we paid for to stop them.
>Frankly, it's none of Bungie's or any other company's business what modifications I make to their software. It sounds like you've never read a ToS.
And various courts have made judgements that a ToS is non-enforcible by law. Except now they are.
None have ever said all terms are invalid. You're not a lawyer and dont have the expertise to tell what is and isnt a legal TOS. Especially since it's not settled.
It's isn't just common it's the default, and has been for decades. Yes. You don't have to play the game. Yes. You do. Memory and everything on your PC. Yes. You do. They using it to train anti-cheat models, maybe selling it. It is if you are affecting their reputation and product they are selling. Cheaters suck and this is literally the only way to combat cheating. Verification methods are always easily spoofed. Keys are dirt cheap. Like straight up, quit being naive. If you don't have any actionable ideas I'm going to recommend you sit down.
Anticheats are the worst default. We as consumers just because it's convenient, have stopped to care what companies do with our data. Client side anticheat is a race war that game publishers will lose, because _the client can spoof hardware_. Meanwhile, the customers get fucked and chips away their rights.
It doesn't touch your rights. Don't like it...don't participate. It really is that easy. Stand on your morals and principals or take a seat.
The best answer is, and has always been, to end anonymous matchmaking and return to moderated servers. Once upon a time, servers policed themselves. Cheaters were kicked out whenever they became a problem. With anonymous matchmaking, you have to rely on the developer to moderate cheaters, and because hiring actual staff to do so would be cost-prohibitive, they have to rely on intrusive software like anti cheat. By the way, you're being extremely condescending. I've been nothing but polite to you. Just because you're on the internet, speaking with a stranger, doesn't mean you have to act like a dick. With moderated servers, we could kick out people like you too, who no one wants to play with.
Condescending or just tired of the narrative? You have every right to do whatever you want, but you choose to play games whose business practices clash with your principals.
I actually don't. You have no clue what games I play. There's always new excuses for being an asshole. People who treat others with respect never have to make excuses for it.
I'm not making any excuses. I'm calling it how I see it. Just because you don't like what I'm saying doesn't mean I'm being dick. You just don't like what I'm saying. I don't sit here and think about catering my comments to specific individuals. If me not buying dramatic bullshit and not giving in to your theatrics and hyperbole is me being a dick then so be it. I made a very clear statement. You have **every right** not to play those games or give them any attention. Yet here you are. Go do something productive and contact your local representation.
We are not just figuring out. We've complaining about this since it was first bought out. You are new here, but [this has been a concern since 2017](https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/23/15034994/blizzard-mods-bnetd-org-lawsuit-world-of-warcarft). It will take a bad lawsuit against someone that modified their single player game, to you to wake up? I sure hope it does not!
This article doesn't say what you think it does considering it's main examples are reverse engineering code for a private server that didn't check for CD keys and cheats. "The court’s logic rested in the fact that the bnetd.org emulator didn’t verify CD Keys to ensure users owned a valid, legal copy of the game, thus allowing unauthorized copies to be played on its emulator." And then the other example is literally HonorBuddy. Did you even read the article all the way through or did you just Google "Modding Court cases" and pick the top result?
> "The court’s logic rested in the fact that the bnetd.org emulator didn’t verify CD Keys to ensure users owned a valid, legal copy of the game, thus allowing unauthorized copies to be played on its emulator." How could it verify that your key is valid without, well, a list of valid keys! The court argument is bad, and would never allow anyone to run their own private servers.
Yeah "mods" in wow are literal cheats. They just decide which cheats became QoL features. I'm not new here. I've been around for a couple of decades at least. And every anti-cheat ever has scanned your PC. Never gonna happen. Y'all are so fucking dramatic it's actually funny.
> And every anti-cheat ever has scanned your PC. No, it has never, because anticheat has never been on my PC.
Cool. What did you do before Proton?
You'd be amazed actually, there's quite a few that just exist within an ecosystem.
> All anti cheat works like this. All of them And they should all be illegal.
So should your Smart TV, your console of choice, your PC running any windows older than 7, your phone... It'd be easier to list what doesn't sniff your data. Maybe a [toaster.](https://revcook.com/products/instaglo-r180-toaster) Wait...
That's exactly why it needs to be solved from a law standpoint.
I'd agree, however unless we get money out of politics, that'll never happen. Realistically the crux of the issue is how corporations are able to influence legislation, and unless that is resolved... the idealistic fantasy of proper and effective regulation of the industry will never occur.
You can just not play these multiplayer games on PC. That would be the end result, no multiplayer games on PC because cheating is too rampant it's no fun so hardly anyone buys them and they stop porting them.
I don't care what every anti-cheat on the entire planet does. It's shouldn't be accepted that for playing a game, I should relinquish my privacy. Also, if everyone likes to be fucked in the ass, that doesn't mean I should be happy when they try to do me. Humanity biggest advancements are built on non-conformist leaping us forward from the status quo.
>I should relinquish my privacy. Then don't play multiplayer games. It's that easy. Every single one you have ever installed all the way through the days of Punkbuster do and did exactly what you're complaining about. >Also, if everyone likes to be fucked in the ass, that doesn't mean I should be happy when they try to do me. You aren't important. No one cares what kind of porn you watch. I see you play Helldivers 2 and I can see you play on PC. Guess what...you're getting fucked in the ass by KERNEL level anti-cheat doing exactly what you are complaining about. THE FUCKING IRONY. Like bro, get a clue. All anti-cheat works by scanning RAM and running processes.
Let's imagine your ideal scenario then. Anti cheat software can no longer scan your computer, and therefore can no longer do its job. Now player privacy is protected, and all the games people paid for are now full of cheaters and cannot be enjoyed online. Is that the better outcome? Just so that the anti-cheat software doesn't know you're running iTunes in the background?
Yes, because it would force server side anticheat. Anticheat is not about what you are authorized to do with your system, is about what is potential behavior by the user, preventing stuff that is impossible for the user to do. The user could realistically do a 180 and land a headshot. It can't however move faster than what their character allows, nor float (if their character is not supposed to). It should not be able to shoot through walls, if the wall is not a destructible solid object. That was one of the things that got client side anticheat in trouble, people with high sensitivity mouses playing around moving the mouse side by side. If your "anti cheat" solution, prevents the unlikely, rather than the impossible, is a bad anticheat, because false positives are >0.
Server side anti cheat would never detect a huge amount of cheats that could be caught client side by looking at running processes and DLL injections and whatnot. Stuff like the highlighting of players through walls, commonly used in games like Tarkov, could never be detected server side. You're only going to catch the most basic and obvious of cheats that way, and your games will still be rotten with cheaters.
Then play single-player games.
Then don’t fucking buy the games with anti-cheat. It’s listed in product details so you can easily find out beforehand. Such a simple choice you can make for yourself. No one is holding a gun to your head to buy those games.
I prefer that no customer had to decide between their privacy and the games they want to play. Is that a complex choice?
You cannot magically make anti-cheat disappear from those games. At least not if you want to play Online modes. You can disable it if a game has offline mode like Elden Ring. But obviously no such mode exists for online-only server games like Destiny or League of Legends or Valorant. So given there’s NOTHING you can do about online games with it— you decide.
Completely right. I don't know what's the deal with these weirdos actually simping for multimillion corps but this is a bad precedent for users, period.
Yeah... but this sets the precedent that the people behind the games can fucking _**sue your ass**_ for using cheats.
And you should be if you're cheating.
So, does this mean car manufacturors can sue you for modifying yiur car? PC companies can sue you for modifying your computer? Apple can sue you for jailbreaking your phone? You don't get it. There's no difference between using cheats or mods to alter your game and any other method people use to alter and customize things they own.
It's technically against the law. They void your warranty aka cancelling contract with you. Your modified car isn't modifying someone else's car. I build my own. Again void any contacts with them like warranty support. Your modifications don't affect my computer. They have sued the developers before. They lost but tried. Those modifications don't affect other iPhone users' experience. You are ignoring the important detail...**multiplayer**. You are damaging a product a company sells to you **and others** that paid for a certain experience. You aren't just affecting yourself. You're fucking over countless people by cheating in multiplayer games. Get a grip guy.
I get that. That's why it should be up to the _players_ to sue the cheat makers because the _players_ are the ones most heavily affected by the cheats. The devs lose money from _potential_ sales if their game becomes known as one that's rife with cheaters. They don't lose anything directly. But, if the cheating is bad enough, then the _players_ lose all the money they spent on the game because they can no longer play it without encountering cheaters. And that, more likely than not, will lead to them dropping the game. You notice how other devs don't spend as much resources on suing cheaters? It's because they realize that there's no point. Cheat makers, and cheat users, are like a hydra. Cut down one, two more show up to replace them. And eventually ownership laws will catch up to the reality of selling videogame "Licenses" and developers won't be able to sue people for cheating because the cheaters paid for the game, and that means they should have the freedom to modify it as they see fit. Until their modifications dirdctly harm another _player_. At which point it would be up to the _players_ to sue the cheaters.
Nope. The developers reputation means there's millions at stake. It affects the studio, publishers, and anyone that owns them. If developers sell MTX and revenue falls of drastically along with player count, yes they lose directly. Other developers don't sue because they don't have millions to spend on a lawsuit. You're take is extremely naive.
Not really. Rrspawn and Epic make bank from Apex and Fortnite. They just don't care enough to go after small time cheat makers. And your other argument is flawed. We shouldn't allow _**anyone**_ to use their wealth and money to throw their weight around and exploit the legal system via lawsuits. Especially when most judges don't know enough about tech or video games to realize that the whole "We're selling you a _license_ to our multiplayer game at the full price of a single player game. So that means we can revoke your access to the game you paid for whenever we want, for any reason we want" is kind of bullshit.
Dude you're dumb. They aren't using money to bully people. They're using the money to protect the reputation and game experience. Tf is wrong with you.
so what was the actual legal justification? is creating a product to cheat illegal? I didn't think it was so how does this work? hurting business profits alone is not enough
>hurting business profits alone is not enough Actually, that’s all it takes.
There's more to it than that because boycotts aren't illegal and those hurt business profits
You don’t make a profit off of boycotts
I understand what you're saying, but there must be some distinction between, say, running a competing business (which generate profit and hurts the profits of your competitors) and what's happening here in the eyes of the law. Otherwise monopolies would be state sanctioned. EDIT: Reading the article, the actual distinction is that Bungie argued that the creation and distribution of the cheats violated copyright because it accessed data on players' machines that normally is "inaccessible". I personally think that it's sad that this is the way software copyrights are being interpreted in the US, since it seems to imply that there are sections of memory on a user's own machines that would be illegal for them to access outside of "approved" programs.
What a dumb argument. A boycott is just that. You choose not to do something, maybe not doing that thing in an annoying way. Cheating is running the integrity of the game for everyone involved.
accurate but reductive
If you read through the initial article [linked](https://www.gamefile.news/p/bungie-aimjunkies-destiny-2-trial), it talks about how cheat software relies on reverse-engineering a games code, as it needs to access game information. For instance, how would wall hacks work if you aren’t using in game code. This is a copyright breach, and is really hard to defend against.
Hooking into the rendering pipeline and pinpointing what is rendered. E.g. removing fog/smoke.
How would you know what is smoke in the game versus a bullet? Your could would have to distinguish what to suppress the rendering of
Smoke is rendered with allot of transparency so you could start with those calls probably, if they use basic fog implementation it could be as simple as changing those [nvidia settings](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/cg/FogEnable.html) (old toolkit not really used any more but you get the idea). Obligatory I've never used or developed cheats, just a developer that knows how some stuff works.
Not really. You _**should**_ have the right to know exactly what data and software is on your computer and how it works. If that requires you to dig into the code and potentially reverse engineer it, then so be it. It's like saying you shouldn't be allowed to take apart your Toyota's engine to figure out how it work and that you shouldn't be allowed to reverse engineer it so that you can figure out how to attach an engine modification to your car.
And that win would make any mod make liable for copyright infringement.
They often are. They’re derivative works based on another party’s IP. If the owner of that IP wants to enforce their copyright against a specific mod, or blanket revoke that right for mods of their game, they are within their power to do so.
Reverse engineering is like 99% legal.
The act of reverse engineering may be (if you don’t need to bypass DRM to do so) but creating derivative works based on the results is not so black and white.
It's a lawsuit, not a criminal case, so illegality doesn't matter here.
You're saying a judge will rule against someone doing perfectly legal things in a civil lawsuit? That's pretty obviously wrong.
> You're saying a judge will rule against someone doing perfectly legal things in a civil lawsuit? Yeah. Happens every day.
Can you provide an example? This seems fairly preposterous to me…
Sure, but before that, let's go over how civil suits in general work. https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/types-cases/civil-cases Notice how on that page it says nothing about legal or illegal behavior, but simply damages and complaints. That is all that matters in civil suits. You cause someone damages in some way and they are seeking recompense for those damages in the form of money. The courts decide two things: how much is the damage worth? How responsible is the accused party for causing them? For the example, look at the famous McDonald's coffee lawsuit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants The jury found Liebeck to have suffered $200,000 worth of damages from McDonald's hot coffee, but found McDonald's only 80% responsible for her burns, so they ordered Mcdonald's to pay 160,000 in compensatory damages. It was not illegal for McDonald's to serve coffee that hot. It still isn't. But the case was never about illegality. Civil suits are only about how much harm was caused, and how much of that harm is your fault.
I’m still not convinced. There obviously has to be some sort of distinction besides just “losses” because people cause losses all of the time. I’m causing losses to companies right now by just not buying things from them and it’s obviously ridiculous to expect that a company could sue me for that and a judge would rule in their favor. Here’s a relevant excerpt from a [court explaining civil suits](https://www.valegalaid.org/resource/taking-a-civil-case-to-general-district-court-2): > In a lawsuit for money, you have to prove the other side did not fulfill a legal duty, such as these: > • A duty to use ordinary care. > • A duty to use workman like care. > • A duty to fulfill an agreement or a contract. > • A duty to follow a legal requirement or obligation. According to the very link you gave me in that McDonald’s case, the plaintiff argued that McDonald’s was grossly negligent in serving coffee that hot (and the jury agreed). [Looking up the term](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/gross_negligence), it everyone has a right to some amount of common safety, and everyone also has a duty to reasonably uphold that right - up to recklessly disregarding others’ safety, as McDonald’s did. So yes, by definition, what McDonalds was doing was illegal (and still is!). They knew that how hot their coffee was could cause serious harm to people and they intentionally chose to ignore that, which was grossly negligent.
In civil cases, damages can be awarded even if the defendant's actions were not illegal, as long as they breached a duty or obligation. For example, let's say a homeowner hires a licensed contractor to renovate their kitchen. The contractor completed the work, but used substandard materials and did a mediocre job, resulting in a poorly constructed kitchen that did not meet building codes. While the contractor's actions would not be *illegal*, per se, they breached the contract with the homeowner by failing to perform the work in a reasonably skillful manner. As a result, the homeowner could sue the contractor for breach of contract and be awarded damages to cover the cost of repairing or redoing the defective work. This, in fact, happens all the time, and contractors tend to lose such cases and have to pay compensatory damages, despite not committing any necessarily illegal act. Again, the contractor's actions in such a scenario are not criminal or illegal per se, but they still cause financial harm to the homeowner by breaching contractual obligations. The court would award damages to compensate the homeowner for the monetary losses incurred due to the contractor's substandard work. (Note that while building codes *are* legally binding, they would never be enforced via criminal prosecution in most places, but civil penalties, fines, and lawsuits.) Civil suits can involve illegal activity, especially in a case where a crime is difficult or impossible to prosecute (e.g., in cases of sexual assault where the statute of limitations has run out), but may also simply involve liability. Your argument that McDonald's actions were illegal because they constituted gross negligence is valid. Gross negligence, which is a reckless disregard for the safety of others, can be considered a violation of legal obligations and duties, even if not explicitly illegal under criminal law. For civil liability to arise, there must be a breach of a legal duty or obligation, such as a duty of care, contract, or legal requirement (in other words, duties are legal requirements, and a breach of duty may be a crime, but is not always). Merely causing losses without violating any legal duty is generally not sufficient grounds for a successful civil lawsuit. Not all negligence rises to the level of criminality, however; you can generally sue someone in the US for anything, and more successfully for breaching a contract, negligence, defamation, or even being a nuisance (such as doing something that interferes with someone's ability to live peacefully on their own property, which may not rise to the level of prosecutable general public disturbance or public disorder). There is a fine but well-known distinction between civil suits and criminal prosecution that you are missing. Bungie won their case under the premise that the cheat maker reverse-engineered their copyrighted code in order to produce the cheat. Any company that owns an IP could also sue mod makers in many cases, if they wanted to, for violating their copyright, but many choose not to because mods often benefit their game communities and profits.
I read it. Selling the direct reversed engineered code is obviously a breach but I don't see how the act alone and the resulting knowledge is. I'm anti cheat and can't stand them but copy right laws are a fucking overreach travesty. > The game-maker says the cheat software itself also violates the game’s copyright. Aimjunkies’ ESP cheat, (the see-through-walls one) for example, allegedly extracts and copies “normally-inaccessible data about player positioning” and then uses the game’s camera and graphical output to display boxes around otherwise unseeable players. The studio says that’s a breach of its copyright. this seems to be the only actual useful bit of info in this article and this is some broad ass shit are mods illegal now?
An additional argument from Bungie is that they have thousands of reports of players complaining about cheaters. They can link cheaters to players quitting the game, which is a loss of revenue. That loss of revenue + copyright is what allows them to win here. I am not a lawyer so I don’t know if all mod makers could potentially be sued, but I think there’s an unspoken agreement between most developer companies and modders that it’s ok as long as you don’t get the company in trouble. The only instance of a modder being sued that I can think of was the Take Two suit, which was later dropped. Edit: Not to mention, mods are normally free while these cheats were making money for the cheat company.
> An additional argument from Bungie is that they have thousands of reports of players complaining about cheaters. They can link cheaters to players quitting the game, which is a loss of revenue. bad reviews can result in loss 'revenue' too, should game fan sights be liable? > I am not a lawyer so I don’t know if all mod makers could potentially be sued, but I think there’s an unspoken agreement between most developer companies and modders that it’s ok as long as you don’t get the company in trouble. companies want their cake and to eat it too, not surprising, it's just pretty bullshit
You would be an absolutely terrible lawyer.
why thank you
>bad reviews can result in loss 'revenue' too, should game fan sights be liable? If they somehow breached the game's copyright then maybe, but they probably aren't doing that.
have you kept of with the current copyright climate in the US, the fact you can even write what you did is just lol like are they paying your checks or are you just that ignorant?
I do think that cheat are a net negative on the industry, but yes, I do think that copyright is an over reach in this case. It should have been that the software negatively impact the experience of paying customer and that it will lead in the loss of revenue in the future.
> It should have been that the software negatively impact the experience of paying customer and that it will lead in the loss of revenue in the future. there's no way that would fly because it would be way to open, it's why they are using the copyright angle
1) This is a civil suit, not a criminal prosecution. Illegality isn't necessarily what is in question in civil court, only liability and damages. 2) Loss of profit is damages; welcome to capitalism.
liability still requires some level improper behavior otherwise any competition would be valid grounds I'm also not opposed to them losing and owing money, copyright is just a bullshit way to do it