In the ever-changing landscape of video-games, one name has remained a massive force for quite some time now and that is Fortnite. The game has been notorious for the lawsuits it has been involved in. Epic Games is in the middle of another legal battle; this time with Youtuber Golden Modz for using Fortnite cheat codes.
Epic Games has decided to sue Golden Modz (real name “Brandon Lucas”) and his frequent collaborator Excentric (real name “Colton Carter”) for selling and using Fortnite cheat codes and game hacks.
Modz has over 1.7 million Youtube subscribers and breached Fortnite’s Terms of Service by selling cheat codes on his website.
He also showed off the Fortnite cheat codes in action in his videos. The Youtuber allegedly violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as well. He was also involved in “tortious interference” due to his actions.
Contor appeared in some of Modz’ videos too, so he rightly got sued as well. Epic Games has requested Youtube to pull down Modz’ videos, meanwhile, Modz pleaded innocence. His argument being, every Youtuber was involved in such activities.
If Fortnite wins the lawsuit, it could mean big trouble for Lucas and Carter. Epic Games’ lawyers want to not only heavily fine the Youtubers but also “disgorge” any profits they had made at the company’s expense.
Epic Games wants redemption, so it sending out a message to other cheatcode buyers and sellers. In addition to punishing Modz and Excentric, Epic Games wants to make cheating unprofitable for anyone who is in the business of buying and selling Fortnite cheats.
Obviously, Epic Games will need to make the code of its game as robust as possible to prevent such loopholes. The company believes such measures would help relieve pressure of patching the game every time a hack comes out on the market.
This isn’t the first time Fortnite has been involved in a lawsuit. In November last year, Fortnite sued a 14 year old kid for using cheats. This was an epic battle (pun intended) as some parties considered the punishment to be too harsh, while others were defending Epic Games believing it was the right call.
The boy’s mother defended him bravely. She stated that he had not broken any rules. She raised the point that his son neither created nor distributed the cheatcodes, rather purchased them off of a popular cheat website.
The laws in this matter are quite vague still. Hopefully the gaming industry will get its fair share of proper rules and regulations in the future.
