US Judge Blocks Programs Letting 'Grand Theft Auto' Players 'Cheat' (reuters.com)

A federal judge has awarded Take-Two Interactive Software, the maker of the "Grand Theft Auto" series, a preliminary injunction to stop a Georgia man from selling programs that it said helps players cheat at the best-selling video game. From a report: Take-Two had accused David Zipperer of selling computer programs called Menyoo and Absolute that let users of the "Grand Theft Auto V" multiplayer feature Grand Theft Auto Online cheat by altering the game for their own benefit, or "griefing" other players by altering their game play without permission. U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan said Take-Two was likely to show that Zipperer infringed its "Grand Theft Auto V" copyright, and that his programs would cause irreparable harm to its sales and reputation by discouraging users from buying its video games.

Comments

Georgia

[Anonymous Coward]

How is a US judge going to stop this exactly?

Re:Georgia

[supremebob]

Georgia the US state, not Georgia the country.

Re:Georgia

[jellomizer]

By stating that this is an illegal activity.
1. Offenders can be fined or impression.
2. Give software companies an other rule in the book to fight against.
3. Prevent legitimate business from doing such actions.

The issue at hand was if this action was illegal or not. Being in a gray areas some people would want to risk it more then if finally defined.

Re:Georgia

[zlives]

same way he is going to stop russian hacking in elections.

Re: Georgia

[Anonymous Coward]

Like every other judge, personally wringing the neck of anybody selling, purchasing or utilizing the product.

Re: Georgia

[SirSlud]

I AM THE LAW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Georgia

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't block the program. He blocked the sale of the program.

Re:Georgia

[thegreatbob]

I'm going to... write a sternly worded letter of complaint!

Re:Georgia

[Anonymous Coward]

He isn't. But if it is shown that sales continue or that the author bypasses the injunction, then there will be penalties that would likely exceed the profits. The penalties would likely also apply even if the defendant eventually wins the case.

Just ban this filthy game

[Anonymous Coward]

It teaches bad values. In these trying times, we need to rid ourselves of things that set bad examples.

Re: Just ban this filthy game

[TimMD909]

Exactly. Killing your prostitute after you pay her is flagrant disregard for a fair capitalist society. Add a feature where you can haggle the price instead of murder, and I'll have no objections.

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[EETech1]

You sound like this dumb bitch I know that voted for Trump.

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[Anonymous Coward]

Point of order, I did.

Re: Just ban this filthy game

[Anonymous Coward]

But killing her was the price, after all the taking of a whore's empty life is part of the exchange.

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[JackieBrown]

You forgot to hit the Anonymous Coward button. Your misogyny is showing.

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[Anonymous Coward]

Found the woman hater.

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this sweet. Some tweenie is pretending to understand geopolitics.

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[EETech1]

Can't even make a joke anymore!
It's a shame how far we've fallen.

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean ... I mean ...

The whole premise of the game is to break the law in as many ways as possible. Now the designers get offended because users want to bend the rules.

"We'll let you steal anything you want, but don't steal from us."

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[The1stImmortal]

The rest of the world was laughing at the US long before Trump was elected....

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Possibly, but what will you do with such misguided voters in the next two years?

Re:Just ban this filthy game

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Yeah, but the joke was getting old. At least now we have a new one.

Re: Just ban this filthy game

[KingBenny]

LOL ... it seems your states have been invaded by brainbugs after all ... i see a growing trend to enact the handmaids label amendment overthere. It's slightly amusing if you didnt have this massive army with more tek than brains. . . so after BREIN and the Mafiaa, now cheating on videogames is the new terrorism ? this world is definitely going in the right direction. How are things, Elon ? Did you finish my mansion on Mars yet, i fear this kettle is about to explode into something ugly, could happen any day, any week ... it just needs a spark

This is a little late guys... 4+ years late

[Anonymous Coward]

GTA 5 is a pretty amazing game aside from the award winning bad UI (it literally got awards for being so bad). You can go anywhere, do anything you'd expect in a city. The sheer number of things to do is mind blowing.

However... it's taken them this long to act on the cheaters beyond simple bans. Proof being
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvJ_haYDh_w (from 4 years ago)

feel free to look.

The game is virtually unplayable when hackers get in the game

Re:This is a little late guys... 4+ years late

[Anonymous Coward]

The in game cheats are not what this is about. I believe this is about the online game.
There are much better cheats for in game like script hook.

EULAs ban anti-cheat

[Anonymous Coward]

By cheating, you're infringing on their copyright. This is why you don't own games anymore, and just get a license to play it.

Re:EULAs ban anti-cheat

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither of those are true, nor are what they what the ruling said.

Re:EULAs ban anti-cheat

[Anonymous Coward]

By cheating, you're infringing on their copyright.

No, by cheating in a multiplayer session you make the game less fun for others who want to play the game as it was intended.

This has nothing to do with copyright, and everything to do with the Terms Of Service contract you agree to in exchange for multiplayer support.

Where the judge is getting it wrong is claiming the user can't alter bits in their own computer's memory because the game is using those bits. This is extremely dangerous for multiple reasons, the biggest being the idea that certain areas of memory on your own computer are legally protected from you doing anything with them by nothing more than some program claiming them for itself. It's no giant leap for someone like Microsoft to claim that because Windows is managing the system's memory, any alteration Microsoft doesn't like, disabling cortana for example, is illegal under this ruling.

This is a gross perversion / expansion of copyright made under the guise of preventing cheaters in a game.

One final point, I guess this means that Rockstar is still using Remote Attestation for it's online security model. This doesn't work when hackers control the game client, and the best way to prevent cheating is to not just blindly accept the clients claim of blindly shooting through six concrete walls with a pistol to headshot kill another player. Input Verification is needed server side to prevent cheaters. It's cheaper and more effective in the long run, but I guess it's not as profitable nor as power tripping as a lawsuit.

Re:EULAs ban anti-cheat

[The1stImmortal]

Bear in mind this is a *preliminary* injunction. So the case it yet to be made in full and pretty much is reliant on the judge's gut feel at this point (and we know how tech savvy judges are, or aren't)

Very disappointing

[mysidia]

Both of these programs Menyoo and AbsoluteMenu are used in single player and have many legitimate and creative purposes.
The issue with people abusing these with hacked clients to break multiplayer rules on GTA's own servers shouldn't be able to prevent these 3rd party tools that have many legitimate and awesome uses from existing....

Also, a Publisher of video game software doesn't have any right to prevent people from altering the game or modifying their game playing experience for personal entertainment; Assuming the person doesn't use the game with an online service to cheat, but the recourse for cheating is to file suit against the person cheating on their service or ban them from their server -- not to prevent the distribution of tools.

Re:Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's affecting the online portion, then your argument loses a great deal of steam. It is their purview to monitor and maintain the online playing field.

Re:Very disappointing

[MobyDisk]

Then the player doing the griefing is violating the terms of service of the online game, not the maker of tool. Online griefing is not within the scope of copyright law. The reality here is that it is easier for Take Two to go after one man that to go after the griefers. As always, one should fix the servers so that the hacks don't work, rather than sue the hacker.

Re:Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

> doesn't have any right to prevent people from altering the game
Except in our bought-and-sold nation you don't own shit, you purchased a "license to operate software" or whatever.

I'm not necessarily against your inaccurate claim - if you address the grievance in the previous sentence, you will indeed own your shit (in law; we own it in practice already)(i.e. the sane way things have been for 10,000 years) and you can freely pound the table with your THEY HAVE NO RIGHT

Re:Very disappointing

[SirSlud]

The maker of the tool could easily modify their tool to prevent it from being used online. But they won't do that, since that's why most people buy it. Intent is a major part of the law.

Re:Very disappointing

[DarkRookie]

It might not be copyright, but it is a ToS violation. They can go after people for that.

https://www.rockstargames.com/...

Under the Code Of Conduct section:
(7) you will not cheat or utilize any unauthorized robot, spider, or other program in connection with the Online Services;

Re:Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether or not it's used for cheating is irrelevant, this isn't a matter of copyright. This could be a case of violating the ToS or EULA, but that would be between the game's developer and the customer, not this 3rd party.

Re:Very disappointing

[lgw]

If the maker had a clue, online use would have been a "third-party mod" to the tool, easily googlable but totally not the maker's fault.

Re:Very disappointing

[Riceballsan]

Of which the arguement isn't relevant. They are well within their rights to design whatever they want to ban/block/detect cheaters in their online servers etc... Which is a whole other topic from punishing people who make tools, just because some users might take them online. Just as I can modify a car, I can sell or give a modified car to a friend, or teach him how to modify it himself, totally OK.. the only one who is breaking the law, is the idiot that drives a car modified outside of road standards, onto a public road. As roads are government the idiot who chose to drive it on such deserves to go to jail. If he uses it on a private track (that still outlaws the modifications), then he should be kicked from the track. However, The person who makes or documents how to make the car modifications, isn't responsible for either of those.

Re:Very disappointing

[Tyr07]

You lose the protections you're mentioning when what you're doing alters the experience on other peoples clients.

Re:Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

Intent is a major part of the law.

Yes, but in the opposite way as you describe it. Intent can take an otherwise illegal activity and reduce its severity, possibly to zero. It cannot (or perhaps should not be able to) take an otherwise legal activity and make it illegal. That is literally a thought crime at that point.

Re:Very disappointing

[Sumus Semper Una]

To be fair, these kinds of mods will (and do) still exist. Just don't attempt to sell them and not expect to run into the same legal troubles.

Re:Very disappointing

[Cederic]

I believe the precedent is that in order for the cheat engine to work it must make a copy of elements of the game code in memory, and that's a violation of copyright.

Personally I disagree but I'm not a judge in a US court.

Re:Very disappointing

[mattventura]

Another company fired off a similar lawsuit (don’t know if its finished yet), where the logic they used is that if you violate the EULA, your license is terminated, therefore you are a pirate. Whether that will actually stand in court is another issue.

Re:Very disappointing

[mysidia]

in order for the cheat engine to work it must make a copy of elements of the game code in memory, and that's a violation of copyright

In order for the original PROGRAM to start up; an image of the elements of the game code are made in memory --
However, this is ephemeral in that the same process occurs in your brain when you read a book: an image of the author's text will
have been made in your memory; cheat code won't have changed that process at all.

An ephemeral image of something is not a copy even if it is identical to the original --- a copy only exists if that is made unique
and independent in a fixed (persistent) form and then distributed or used on its own; not if an image is ephemeral and only used
with another copy --- code in bits in RAM are not sent out for use independent of the permanent storage.

Re:Very disappointing

[Cederic]

None of which is material to a US court of law.

Re:Very disappointing

[omnichad]

Theoretically, you can't design such software without testing on a real server. In practice, it would still be hard to prove.

Re:Very disappointing

[MobyDisk]

That's what I said.

Let us be clear, it is not a TOS violation against the person who *made* the tool, but for the people *using* the tool. Now, if the person who made it also used it online, then they can get that one person for a TOS violation. But the only likely remedy the court can offer is to disconnect the person's GTA account, which Take Two can already do. So Take Two is going to argue that it is a copyright violation. Their hope will be to make him liable for everyone else's use of the tool. While you and I think this is absurd, Blizzard has succeeded using this exact same argument numerous times.

Re: Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

And if the maker of the mod never agreed to the EULA?

Re:Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

The person who makes or documents how to make the car modifications, isn't responsible for either of those.

Go to an auto modification shop and ask them to install flamethrowers on your tailpipe. See how far your car analogy gets you there. They won't do it, because it's not street legal. Doesn't matter if they're not driving the car, they will refuse to install it on yours.

Re: Very disappointing

[mattventura]

They managed to develop a cheat without playing the game? That's a feat. If they did, in fact, play the game to develop the cheat, then they're also pirating it (or so the lawsuit argues). And making a profit through their "piracy", which makes it look even worse.

Re:Very disappointing

[tepples]

To what extent is 17 USC 117(a) (copying as an essential step in use) "material to a US court of law"?

Re:Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

It is complex. As an example, lets say I want to use a GPL'd library in my application but I don't want to release my source code. So instead I create a "hello world + library" application. My application then spawns the hello world combo. Then I simply copy the entire program into my programs memoryspace. Now I can use the GPL work in my program.

Now, what if I decide to distribute my program? Would this be a GPL violation? If the library had a "no derivatives work" clause would my program be a violation?

If large parts of the cheat tool are based on copying or otherwise directly using native code from the game then the cheat will probably be considered as using the unlicensed code.

Re:Very disappointing

[SirSlud]

Don't be daft. You can prove intent without reading people's thoughts. People communicate their intentions to other people. You can take a legal activity (using copywritten material) and use it in legal ways (under fair use) and be found guilty of copyright infringement because you communicated to somebody else that your intent was to circumvent copyright law even if all your actions would have been legal under another intent.

Re:Very disappointing

[ebyrob]

1998 called, they want their DMCA back.

If words like ephemeral meant ANYTHING to copyright the DMCA would never have passed because DVD makers would not have been scared of getting sued into oblivion for making partial temporary "copies" in memory of movies while playing them.

Re:Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

You're hilarious.

Do you know what actually happens when you ask a mod shop to put flamethrowers on your tailpipe and hand them money?

They put fucking flamethrowers on your fucking tailpipe.

Don't believe me? Check youtube. Lots of flamethrower videos to prove you wrong.

Re: Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything you do in an ONLINE game will influence other players. You can troll or grieve others even without cheats. I don't approve of cheats in online games. I believe players cheating online should be banned. Legal action against the distributor of the cheats is waaay overkill here.

Re: Very disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the penalty for the software vendor making a false accusation against someone who legally purchased their copy of the game? Is it an equivalent fine and jail sentence for the executives of the company, with increasing penalties for repeat offenses?

Or is it nothing? I'm betting the latter...

Re:Very disappointing

[rtb61]

They compete against cheats sold by the company. They basically sell game funny money to buy a competitive advantage and degame the game, basically in real world game terms in game cheats to give substantial advantge. The question is whether or not this is fair or unfair. The company is selling a game. The company is selling cheats, it claims are legal. Other companies sell cheats, more competitive cheats. Is not the user entitled to choose the most competitive cheats, once they have bought the game. That would be unfair denial of access to cost competitive cheats with regard to a game they have bought and are legally entitled to cheat in any way they want, no criminal penalty, just questionable denials of access based upon originally agreed terms at 'POINT OF PURCHASE' as governed by law in most countries, post purchase agreements not allowed, without option of full refund and costs of purchasing and invested time.

Re:Very disappointing

[Cederic]

Go and read the court cases on the matter, where the lawyers will provide a thorough explanation and the judge may even offer an interpretation too.

I'm going by settled cases, not a law that clearly didn't apply in them.

Re: Very disappointing

[The1stImmortal]

Not familiar with the details of this case but in theory the cheat could have been developed consistent with reverse engineering exemptions and provisions in some jurisdictions. Also, breaching a ToS is not copyright infringement, it's breach of contract.

I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[rsilvergun]

I would have thought this was settled 2 decades ago when Nintendo sued Galoob over the Game Genie and lost (with the classic line "If I buy a car does the manufacturer have a right to tell me I can't paint it blue?").

I'm aware the dynamics change with micro transactions & online play, but let's put it another way: Does Microsoft have a right to ban you from using Greasemonkey with office 365 because they might want to sell you a plugin that does what you used to with a Greasemonkey script?

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[SirSlud]

It's an entirely different situation and impact on the producer of the software when what an individual does with the 3rd party product affects other purchasers of the software who don't use it. Especially if it affects them in negative ways that may cause them to consider terminating their consumer relationship with that producer.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The court's not sure it should care. It's a preliminary injunction, until the case is complete. Which means the judge was convinced (to some level) that Take-Two could win the case and that it would suffer "irreparable harm" (in driving people off the online game) while the case happened.

Now, I have no idea if Take-Two is liable for damages the injunction causes if they lose the case.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm aware the dynamics change with micro transactions & online play, but let's put it another way: Does Microsoft have a right to ban you from using Greasemonkey with office 365 because they might want to sell you a plugin that does what you used to with a Greasemonkey script?

The "always online, server hosted" game model changes the situation for the same reason companies love it. You are not, by any interpretation of the agreements, buying a game. At best you are purchasing "unlimited access to game servers contingent on respecting the terms of play." This means that all the arguments about doing obscene things with your own property have no bearing on the GTA5 case or nearly anything recently released by Ubisoft, Blizzactivision, EA, and a few other companies that allegedly produce single-player games.
Whether that applies to Office365 has to do with whether your Greasemonkey script can possibly ever modify things on their server in unwanted ways.

Before you bring up Steam, as much as I dislike their "ask for permission to play" model, as far as I know they do not run or save any of your actual gameplay data on their servers and syncronizing game files is unidirectional. This means any modding or hacking you do while you play is your own business, not Valve's.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[MobyDisk]

You should be right, except a combination of the DMCA + EULAs completely reversed all that. You can thank Blizzard over and over again for their part of it:
Blizzard -vs- Glider
Blizzard -vs- Ceiling software
Blizzard again
Blizzard again, this time it's Overwatch

I hate cheaters too. But Blizzard and their lawyers are the biggest cheaters of all. They would happily take away rights from their own families if it meant they could make a buck.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[dgatwood]

The "always online, server hosted" game model changes the situation for the same reason companies love it. You are not, by any interpretation of the agreements, buying a game.

Makes no difference. This is the tech equivalent of making it illegal to sell horns that play "La Cucaracha" that are designed to magnetically mount to rental cars because it would cause irreparable harm to the reputation of the rental car company if cars with Hertz license plate brackets sounded like Mexican ice cream trucks (*) or whatever.

* Any implication that Mexican ice cream trucks actually play La Cucaracha is entirely unintentional, just so we're clear.

At best you are purchasing "unlimited access to game servers contingent on respecting the terms of play.

Correct. And to the extent that they can use technical measures to detect abuse and ban people who use these hacks, that is well within their right.

However, a legal bright line is crossed when they attempt to use copyright as a means of regulating what you can do with hardware that you own, or as a means of regulating the sale of products that merely enable the user to modify a copyrighted work. Even in the prior cases, the copyrighted work was licensed, not sold, and the fact that the newer games use the company's servers does not change the fundamental nature of the argument in any meaningful way, because it does not change the fundamental nature of the act in question (the user modifying a game) or the technology in question (a device that helps the user do so) in any meaningful way.

What the company might be able to do is allow the technology to be sold, then sue the seller for damage to their reputation under the computer fraud and abuse act. This is, of course, entirely orthogonal to the copyright issue, which is settled law.

Re: I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, the right of someone to hack and enjoy the game the way they want ends where it affects other people.

For example, last week I was playing GTA 5 online, when someone used a hack to move a shipping cage so it contained my character. I was stuck unable to play, the only way to free myself was to log out. Unfortunately, GTA 5 has an issue where it takes a long time to log in, so this griefer ended my play for the day.

I don't want to play with people like that.
Rockstar don't want people like that to use their systems.

At some point, you do need the law to step in and intervene.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an entirely different situation and impact on the producer of the software when what an individual does with the 3rd party product affects other purchasers of the software who don't use it. Especially if it affects them in negative ways that may cause them to consider terminating their consumer relationship with that producer.

Change that to 1st party product, and you've just described why people should terminate their consumer relationship with the 1st party producer.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Tyr07]

The line that was crossed is when it affected other peoples clients.

Makes no difference. This is the tech equivalent of making it illegal to sell horns that play "La Cucaracha" that are designed to magnetically mount to rental cars because it would cause irreparable harm to the reputation of the rental car company

This is incorrect. It would be the tech equivalent of making it illegal to sell a device that FORCES other peoples rental cars to all play La Cucaracha without their permission. Computer fraud act is going to kick in.

I also don't play the online game anymore due to cheaters, so it very much is damaging their player base and sales. It can actually be proven, it's not theoretical.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

The source code of the game is protected by copyright.
This cheat program only works in conjunction with the copyrighted source code, and is being distributed commercially. So it can be argued the source code of the cheat program is a derived work being sold without a lisense.

This is different from painting your car after you purchase it, and more closely related to selling modified versions of the manufacturer's logo pendant you made yourself which include an eye-seeking laser. The car manufacture doesn't like their car being associated with blinding lasers so they sue you for infringing the trademark on their logo.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

Well, the courts *should* care, but this situation is so fucked up and illegal it's mind boggling they don't.

Take-two has committed a felony here, specifically the crime of "copyright misuse"
Take-two has violated copyright law and the rights of thousands of people that bought their client software (GTA5)

Look up title 17 (copyright law) section 1854 "Copyright Infringement - First Sale Doctrine"
https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1854-copyright-infringement-first-sale-doctrine

Right in paragraph 2, take-two has NO rights to control the specific instance of a copy once it is sold.

You are allowed to modify your own one single copy.
You are not allowed to make an additional copy of it, neither exactly as-is or modified, and distribute an additional copy, but that original first copy you can do anything you like with.
(So yes you CAN "distribute" that one copy so long as it's the copy in full, as in you don't retain a a copy of it. If it goes, you can't have it any longer)

This is a right granted by law to everyone upon purchasing a legal copy (it doesn't apply to a pirated copy, it must be legit)
Take-two is infringing on all of these peoples rights. They are also claiming rights they explicitly do not have.

Worse, this one person is not distributing any code made by take-two.
He isn't including parts of the game with his software (Or at least that is both what the man claims, and is also not what take-two is claiming happened, I don't know this for certain personally. But if take-two isn't claiming that happened then until they do why should we care?)

So they are infringing his own rights of distribution of his own copyrighted work, a right granted to this man by law.

The court should care about all of the copyright violations and copyright misuse that take-two is doing here.
They need some punishment for their crimes, but instead the victim who's rights are violated gets punished. Figures.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

Then ban the cheater! Oh, but then they can't keep getting that monthly fee out of them, can they?

Re: I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[cyber-vandal]

That's terrible. Why wouldn't you want your online game overrun with gold farming bots and other assorted cheating griefers. Any players that don't like it should cry moar and play Care Bears Online.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Cederic]

There is no monthly fee for GTA Online.

Just a shitty game full of griefers that puts you off playing anyway.

Re: I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[dgatwood]

The thing is, the right of someone to hack and enjoy the game the way they want ends where it affects other people.

Agreed. But the fact that it annoys other people still doesn't make it a copyright law issue. It's a combination of a contract law issue and a technical issue.

More to the point, it isn't an issue for the person creating the hacking tools, period, because those people likely aren't the ones bound by that contract. Rather it's an issue for the griefers who are using the tools in ways that are sufficiently inappropriate that they should be banned for doing it, it's an issue for the game company that should detect that abuse and ban them, and it's an issue for the innocent gamers caught in the middle by that company's apparent inability to do so.

None of those points support this being treated as a copyright issue in any way. Illegal, perhaps. Subject to lawsuit on other grounds, probably. But a copyright violation? Definitely not.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Greyfox]

I guess it mostly boils down to the legality of the EULA, but in this case it's easy enough to argue that the programs in question do economic harm to the company and might also violate some criminal statutes WRT unauthorized access to computer networks and copyright derivative works. That's a whole lot of something to throw at the wall to see what sticks. Violating the EULA of a single player game and possibly even distributing code to do the same might have a different answer, although you can always paint copyright violations with a pretty broad brush. (IANAL, I'm a developer and I have to pay attention to these sorts of things.)

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[dgatwood]

This is incorrect. It would be the tech equivalent of making it illegal to sell a device that FORCES other peoples rental cars to all play La Cucaracha without their permission. Computer fraud act is going to kick in.

You've got to admit that such a device would be funny as heck.

But it really isn't equivalent to forcing other people's cars to play the tune. Rather, it is equivalent to allowing you, as the driver of the car, to force other nearby drivers to *listen* to the tune. The fact that their cars are vibrating sympathetically in response to external sound waves sent out by your car is merely a side effect of the way the cars and the medium in between them are designed, in much the same way that the misbehavior of the other people's games in response to your game doing something it should not be allowed to do is a side effect of the way the game and the server in between is designed.

They're not hacking other people's devices. They are merely cheating in ways that the server isn't catching, and in ways that cause things to happen that aren't supposed to be able to happen, resulting in situations that other people's devices are unable to help them get out of (because they shouldn't be possible). That's subtly different; the other users' devices are not being forced to do something; they are simply failing to reject invalid input. Similarly, the servers are not being forced to do something; they are simply failing to reject invalid input.

CFAA *might* kick in — it isn't open and shut — but it is clearly not a copyright issue.

Re: I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[MobyDisk]

Clearly you don't understand the conversation. No one in this thread is arguing that gold farming bots or griefing should be permitted. The argument is that the courts are applying the wrong section of law (copyright, instead of terms-of-service contract violations), and the consequence is that they are taking away legitimate tools from the white hat hacking community and the broader software development community. The courts are broadening copyright to the point where fair use is being eluded. It is affecting young coders, filmmakers, and musicians. If you are interested in this, I recommend reading the EFF's amicus briefs on some of the cases above.

Re: I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, US law is a little weird. Under UK law, this would be a clear breach of the Computer Misuse Act, as the author of the software is knowingly making the game servers operate in a manner the owners (Take Two) don't want. I don't think you have similar though

Re: I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[dgatwood]

On this side of the pond, it's the CFAA.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

It is more of a gray area. I suspect opinions would change if you had a GPL'd product being modified by a closed-source, for pay program. Especially if that program did things like copy parts of the compiled, GPL'd code or directly call functions in the GPL'd code. If a program works in a way that would make it a violation /wrt GPL I would expect it to also be be in violation of a license that doesn't allow derivative works at all.

Re: I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider the related case of the GPL. Pretend for the moment that GTA-V were released under a GPL license instead of a license that doesn't allow derivative works. Now, consider someone making and then distributing/selling a tool that modifies the GPL work to do something else, copies compiled code from the GPL work, or directly uses functions from the GPL work. If they don't release the source for their tool it really seems to me that they would be in violation of the GPL.

If the tool is considered a derivative work then it would need to comply with the license. When the license does not allow redistribution, selling the tool seems like a copyright violation.

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Tyr07]

When my car explodes randomly, or my client disconnects from the game, it forces altered behavior on /my/ client.

It shouldn't read me as dead, and it shouldn't have exploded my car. They're not tricking the server. They're tricking your client, so it is forcing your client / your car. If everything was calculated server side they couldn't have so many players running around in sync, in traffic, on a map as huge as GTA 5's map. There's a lot of peer to peer that goes on.

They are actually hacking your client, by using a modded client that allows them to send information that is not correct to manipulate your client. So they're literally interfering with your client by using special tools that let them send custom data to it.

It would be the same as install a device on a car, that sends signals to other cars, forcing them to play the tune, not listen to it. Actually play. We're not talking about someone cheats to get a rocket launcher, we're talking about your car exploding in an infinite loop and you can no longer play the game until you exit and join a new one.

Re: I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[Anonymous Coward]

My computer tells the server it did X. The server accepts X and makes it happen in your client. The mod user did nothing to the third party players computer.

Think about this. What if a bug in the game resulted in the #2 player slot getting killed if anyone shoots the top of the tallest building. If i then shoot that building, even unknowingly, and you as the #2 player get killed, you are just as unhappy as the guy killed by a griefer. I do not accept the idea that a bug in a game means i go to jail.

The fact that I can install a mod on my PC and negatively impact you means the game has bugs. The maker should fix the bugs, even if just to run a check in the client and give people and option for vanilla/valve anticheat or whatever.

Re: I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[The1stImmortal]

Hm not necessarily. Remember, derivative work stuff applies to redistribution. If you distribute something containing none of the original code (but designed to connect to it) then the derivative work doesn't exist until the user combines it with the original code on their computer, and they're entitled to make a derivative work of a copyrighted work, as long as they dont copy or distribute it. I can change words in my copy of a book as much as I want as long as I dont try to print new runs off it. And I can distribute instructions for people who have the same book to be able to deface it *exactly* the same way I did to end up with effectively a duplicate copy of my defaced book

Re:I'm not entirely sure the courts should care

[SvnLyrBrto]

> Just a shitty game full of griefers that puts you off
> playing anyway.

If fairness though, you just described pretty much *every* online game since Blizzard took away private LAN play amongst closed groups of friends, and forced everyone onto battle.net.

There are way too many assholes amongst the general unfiltered public for online gamine to be enjoyable; even without cheating clients in play. These days, I judge games almost entirely by their single-player experience; with only the rare exceptions for the few that still allow one to host a local server on a closed and private network. So I really see no reason to give a damn about the existence of multi-player cheats at all. And there are plenty of legit and cool things you can so with cheats and hacks in single-player. So really, screw Take-Two and screw this judge.

I'm torn

[reiterate]

I don't think the guy should be allowed to do what he's doing, but nobody has made GTA online more unplayable than the developers. Fuck that p2w garbage, I hope they lose money.

Irony

[Nidi62]

Take-Two had accused David Zipperer of selling computer programs called Menyoo and Absolute that let users of the "Grand Theft Auto V" multiplayer feature Grand Theft Auto Online cheat...[f]or "griefing" other players by altering their game play without permission

So someone is getting in trouble for hijacking other players (game sessions) in a game called Grand Theft Auto?

Re:Irony

[SirSlud]

Oh man, and get a load of this, people play games in which they get shot don't actually want to get shot in real life! HYPOCRITE MUCH, AMIRITE

Something

[thegreatbob]

At least something is being done; even though it seems amusing, having millions in cash (or cars) spawned on top of you at least once during every play session is why I stopped playing it.

Re: Something

[Anonymous Coward]

At least cash is harmless and cars will just kill you. Some of the hackers are spawning scenery objects that trap you while in weapon restricted scenes, so you have to quit to free yourself and go through the ridiculous connection time again

Re: Something

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the solution to griefing is adding /respawn command to the console.

Or instead of that simple technical fix, we should rewrite our legal system to give increase power to a multi billion dollar industry.

that line of thinking can be used to lock out repa

[Joe_Dragon]

that line of thinking can be used to lock out repair at non dealer shops.

With copyright bs, and that can would cause irreparable harm to its sales and reputation by discouraging users from buying service and repair at dealer.

Diablo 2 Open Realms

[Anonymous Coward]

We used to do this in Diablo 2 too! Open realms characters were stored on your machine, so people used to max out their stats with editors. Hosting games was also on your machine. So some hacked character would come along to your game, and you'd edit the memory so they lost all of their health but spewed an infinite stream of gold upon death!

Copyright

[MoralCharacter]

I'm not sure why the ruling was based on 'copyright infringement and causing irreperable harm to revenue'. This kind of cheating should fall under laws regarding computer crime.

Not this doesn't include things like modding or cheating in a single player game. The problem is that this is being done with devices not owned by the user - game servers, other players games. And this guy is distributing that software enabling it. Regardless of whether you love or hate this particular game - it's not the only game that has problems with people like David.

Take the newest 'big game' to come out, Monster Hunter: World. There are already 'cheats' (most people call them Hacks, as that's what the actually are) less than a week after the game came out. Among other things, they give people the ability to steal items from other players or givie them infinite items (which is completely impossible in this game without hacking.) Infinite items might 'sound' like a nice hack, but the game is entirely focused on hunting monsters for items - having an infinite amount of items removes the point of playing the game for most people. (I am simplifying why this is actually a bad thing.)

Sure, Capcom could have done a better job with preventing this. But just because a car was left unlocked, it doesn't make it legal to go in, take someones things and go on a joy ride (car analogy!).

Re:Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

They should sue the makers of the shoes that allowed the person to walk to the car to steal it!

They should also sue gun stores for selling guns to people that use those guns to shoot others.

Re:Copyright

[MoralCharacter]

You seem to be confused here. None of those items are intentionally manufactured to harm other people.
I did discount mod tools as being illegal. If you bought the game, and installed it on your own computer - you are completely free to do whatever you want with it as long as it only affects your game on your computer.
David's tools step over the line though - they are technically 'modding' tools, but the fact that it works online crosses a pretty specific line.
You don't just magically get to change something like a privately owned game server by making a modding tool. To do something like that, you need to reverse engineer how the server communicates with the client, and then figure out how to get it to accept 'bad' commands - like teleporting another player under the ocean, stealing all their money, and so on. If you get to this point, it's pretty trivial to prove intent if you then sell this thing to others.
David is well aware of how his product is used. He's been asked to disable the online features in the past. He refused. So now he had to go to court.

You can make a pair of shoes and say they're intended for walking and jogging recreationally. You can make a gun and say it's made for sport shooting and game hunting.
But you can't make a bizzare human torture device, glue a shoe to it and say "It's just a pair of Nikes bro, you can't indict me". Some people may well have used it to go jogging, it doesn't absolve you of responsibility when everyone else clearly see's it's a torture device and use it to re-enact their favorite scenes from Saw. Though I'd like to see you try to explain to a Judge how a device that very slowly cracks open human skulls and peels off fingernails - but also has Nikes glued to it - isn't a torture device.

David made hacking tools and sold them to other players. Client Modding got glued to the side of software designed to exploit and disrupt the operation of an online service. The modding aspect is just a feeble attempt to cover his ass.
But this is slashdot. Someone could make a virus and package it with minesweeper and people would come out to defend them - "It's minesweeper! The creator didn't intend for it to be used to wipe every computer in that Hospital. People just used it that way!"

To paraphrase Shaggy 2 Dope of the ICP

[OrangeTide]

Fucking Copyrights, how do they work?

I imagine this phrase goes through Judge Stanton's head at the start of every IP case.

Sounds good

[duke_cheetah2003]

I think it's a bit of a waste of court resources to be forced to deal with cheaters in video games.

But whatever, cheating in online games ruins the game for everyone, so I'm all for courts putting their foot down on this. I know in my own case, I pretty much don't play any online games anymore, because of griefing, cheating and generally barbaric manners.

Enforcing this ruling could be problematic though. It's notoriously difficult to take anything off the internet.

GTA5 has no server side validation? How lame

[master_p]

Hacks shouldn't happen in online games. The server should do all the checks and take all the decisions. If a hacked client can ruin other clients' games, then the online game is severely ill-designed.

Re:GTA5 has no server side validation? How lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Hacks shouldn't happen in online games. The server should do all the checks and take all the decisions. If a hacked client can ruin other clients' games, then the online game is severely ill-designed.

Generally this is true, but there are exceptions that cannot be effectively managed server-side *in principle*, such as aim bots.

Re:GTA5 has no server side validation? How lame

[Anonymous Coward]

GTA has no centralized server. It is all peer to peer garbage, which is why online play is so horrible sometimes. The client will regularly connect you to a "server" that's really some Taiwanese, Russian, or Chinese guy halfway across some saturated underwater cable with a ping time of 800ms and expect everything to be fine.

Worse, everything that happens in that game is apparently sent tokenized chat messages. When the server receives a message it understands (hey i'm starting this mission, let's open a new room up and wait for people), it acts on it. Sometimes missions have specialized weapons or other behavior that alters the client, and all of these control codes come from some other (untrusted, but trusted) computer on the network.

When TT changes their codes, all of the people running the old mods start getting their crap pasted into the public chat channel. You'll see like 5 strangely formatted messages from them right before the guy is kicked from the server, only to be replaced a few seconds later by someone else running a more updated hack program that knows the codes changed already so the new modder is right back to screwing with people's game sessions again.

You're right -- it's an awful, awful system, the first time TT ever tried doing a GTA Multiplayer game, and the results show. It was a miserable online experience at launch and hasn't gotten much better over the years.

Re:GTA5 has no server side validation? How lame

[MoralCharacter]

I imagine there had to be some kind of checks in balances in place - Rockstar isn't exactly some clueless indie making their first game. David would have needed to take the time to figure out and make an exploit to work around whatever was in place to prevent tampering online for his tool to be able to do what it does online. If David had instead say, taken the time to figure out the checks and balances on a banks financial servers, and then sold a tool that let you 'mod' that server - we've had a very different news article.

I couldn't say why Rockstar hasn't stamped this out - they've certainly made attempts in the past. My guess is that because these tools are being sold, that's incentive enough to keep updating the tool to get around whatever Rockstar puts in place.

The only way to make an online game server secure, is to not let anyone play on it. Any game that's popular enough has been hacked in one way or another, because the unfortunate reality is that your software is in their hands - not even the 'Best Software Protection' in the industry to date, Denuvo, stopped people for very long.

Re:GTA5 has no server side validation? How lame

[MoralCharacter]

A lot of Chinese, Korean and Japanese MMOs take some incredibly strong measures to try (and fail) to prevent players from hacking. Sony's Rootkit is a joke compared to what some of these anti-hacking programs can do.

Honestly, them barring David from selling his tool, isn't going to stop anyone from hacking GTA - this isn't even a temporary victory, there's plenty of alternative tools available just a google search away. One even makes you Darth Vader so you can "make others suffer, while you stay safe" apparently.

Re:GTA5 has no server side validation? How lame

[strikethree]

If a hacked client can ruin other clients' games, then the online game is severely ill-designed.

If only it were that simple. Yes, many games are poorly designed. No, even the best designs will have issues with ill-behaved clients.

In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Georgia man releases offline game hacking code under open source license with illegal 'online mode' add-on removed. In my day we used to call the offline cheats trainers but we never had anything online and altering data in network packets wasn't required.

Why didn't we think of this sooner?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we just outlaw guns and knives then murder rates should go down.

Oh, fuck, why don't we just make murder illegal!?

t. outlaws for monopolizing the outlawed

Dangerous Precedent for Integrators

[Anonymous Coward]

It's video games today, open and closed source systems software tomorrow.

Too little Too late

[ChoGGi]

Grand Cheat Loading V FTL