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

Re:Georgia

[supremebob]

Georgia the US state, not Georgia the country.

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: Georgia

[SirSlud]

I AM THE LAW

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

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

[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

[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.

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

[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

[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: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

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.