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posted by martyb on Thursday November 30 2017, @12:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the Epic-Fail? dept.

Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, has filed a lawsuit against a 14-year-old boy who used cheating software for Fortnite Battle Royale and uploaded a video to YouTube showing others how to use it. The boy filed a DMCA counterclaim after Epic Games tried (successfully) to take down his video, and then uploaded a second video doubling down on the cheating (here is a third intact video from the YouTuber explaining the situation, 7m16s). The original video was ultimately removed and resulted in a "strike" against the YouTuber's account. The boy's mother has filed a letter with the Eastern District Court of North Carolina blasting the lawsuit and asking for it to be dismissed. She says that Epic Games failed to bind underage users with the EULA for their free-to-play game and claims that she did not give parental consent for her son to play the game. She also points out that the software in question is easily obtainable online and that her son did not modify the game with his own code:

Epic Games, the game developer of the massively popular Fortnite survival shooter, now finds itself at the center of a heated debate around the ethics of punishing cheaters after filing a lawsuit against a 14-year-old boy. In response, the boy's mother filed a legal note tearing down Epic's lawsuit and calling for it to be thrown out. The ensuing debate has been fierce, with some praising Epic and others decrying the legal measures as excessive and heartless, suggesting this case could become a touchstone for how game developers of highly competitive online titles handle cheaters and licensing agreement violations in the future.

[...] Epic, which has banned cheaters only to see them develop more robust workarounds, has responded by suing both distributors of the software and, now it seems, at least one user of it. Suing an individual user instead of simply banning them is an unorthodox and controversial move because it echoes the misguided actions of the music recording industry in its attempt to crackdown on piracy. That parallel was only further cemented by the note submitted by the 14-year-old's mother in the Eastern District of North Carolina.

[...] "This particular lawsuit arose as a result of the defendant filing a DMCA counterclaim to a takedown notice on a YouTube video that exposed and promoted Fortnite Battle Royale cheats and exploits," Epic told The Verge in a statement. "Under these circumstances, the law requires that we file suit or drop the claim. Epic is not okay with ongoing cheating or copyright infringement from anyone at any age. As stated previously, we take cheating seriously, and we'll pursue all available options to make sure our games are fun, fair, and competitive for players."

Here's some analysis from a copyright attorney (10m53s, starts at 5m45s). He is not impressed with the mom's letter.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @02:39PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @02:39PM (#603438)

    Is there a transcript anywhere by chance.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday November 30 2017, @03:07PM (5 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday November 30 2017, @03:07PM (#603450) Journal

    Well that's pretty interesting. What do we think of that? I have a few problems with this. First, a 14-year-old child can in fact enter into a contract. Now, how enforceable that contract is... sure, children definitely do have different contract rights than adults. But that doesn't mean that a child can't enter into a contract and be responsible for the damage that someone causes. There are lots of cases about children entering into contracts for either equipment or machinery or vehicles and then claiming that they're not responsible for the damage that they cause, like anyone else may by negligent operation or something like that.

    So in this case, the cheating that Caleb is accused of is fairly serious in that they're saying that it helped destroy or hurt the growth of the game, and I can confirm that I stopped playing the game because of the cheating that was going on. So it's not like Epic Games doesn't have a complaint. The question is can they sue a child, and the answer is yes they can. Whether or not they released personal information... I don't think so. You're allowed to sue someone in court, and you must name who you're suing.

    Then, even in her first paragraph, she admits that he did use the cheats during a livestream on YouTube, so Epic's case is more or less made for them here. The question is, what's the damage? What's the remedy? And if there is in fact no legal remedy that is recognizable here, then the dismissal would probably be proper, but if there is a recognizable legal remedy, then the case will be allowed to proceed. I'm not sure how the court is going to treat this. It's on the docket as a "letter" but it could be seen as a request for dismissal, and Epic may want to figure out what their response should be.

    Another thing that I found here. In Delaware, there is no limit on parental responsibility for the torts of a minor. So if Mr. Caleb is found to be liable for some amount of money, the amount of money would be something that the parent is responsible for. In all honesty, I'm sure that Epic Games is going to use their good judgment on this one, but at the same time I would definitely recommend that Ms. Lauren Rogers go and find an attorney in her area that would be able to help her with this situation here. Because Caleb is going to need to answer this complaint unless Epic Games decides to drop the whole thing just because he's 14.

    I don't know. What do you think? Would you drop the case just because he's 14, or do you think that something needs to be done about the cheating situation, especially in Fortnite, which I haven't actually played it in a little bit so somebody let me know how it has been recently. When the Battle Royale mode first came out, it was absolutely terrible. It's not like there wasn't a problem. So there's something that has to be addressed here.

    I doubt that a simple letter from Mom is going to undo the whole court case, and I do recommend that Ms. Rogers do seek the advice of an attorney with regards to this particular case lest she wind up admitting things to the opposing side and end up being liable for some amount of money. Or at the very best, Epic is looking for at least injunctive relief to prevent Caleb from using these tools again or streaming their game or things like that. So there's remedies that I think are available here and I don't think that the case will be dismissed just because of Mom's letter. We'll see what happens. Maybe Epic will reach out to Ms. Lauren Rogers and we'll have some kind of dismissal of the case based on some kind of settlement or something like that. Either way, I think the message has definitely been sent that they take cheating seriously and they don't want cheaters to be playing their games.

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    • (Score: 3, Touché) by ilsa on Thursday November 30 2017, @04:27PM

      by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 30 2017, @04:27PM (#603498)

      Thank you. I despise being forced to watch videos when I can read the content in 1/10th of the time.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Thursday November 30 2017, @04:58PM (2 children)

      by sjames (2882) on Thursday November 30 2017, @04:58PM (#603514) Journal

      If they were smart, they would just ban him and get on with life. Alas, they already showed they're not that smart. So instead parents will learn that letting their kids play Epic games opens them to an unreasonable liability.

      Meanwhile, since the suit has nothing to do with copyright but Epic claims it arises out if a DMCA counter-claim, they have admitted by implication that their initial action was a knowing abuse of the DMCA.

      • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:02PM (1 child)

        by etherscythe (937) on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:02PM (#603650) Journal

        They did ban him, multiple times. He opened new accounts and kept on trolling.

        --
        "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:43PM

          by sjames (2882) on Thursday November 30 2017, @10:43PM (#603693) Journal

          I haven't seen that anywhere. But nevertheless, Epic has still made it clear that the most rational parental decision is to ban all Epic games until they become less sue happy.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @06:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @06:19PM (#603559)

      Thank you!