Fortnite Publisher suing Aimbot Service claiming Copyright Infringement

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2 minutes ago, bob51zhang said:

Howwww whaaat?

 

How is this copyright infringement?

My guess is the cheat tools use some part of the game's code or something

[Dissitesuxba11s]

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

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My guess is the cheat tools use some part of the game's code or something

Thank you.

 

8 minutes ago, bob51zhang said:

Howwww whaaat?

 

How is this copyright infringement?

And yes, the individuals in question used part of the game code to create a derivative of the game in the form of cheat codes.

 

From the suit:

Quote

The Copyright Act protects the owners of creative works from the unauthorized use of those works by others. The right to prepare derivative works based upon a copyrighted work is one of the exclusive rights granted to copyright holders under the Act.

 

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

8 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

My guess is the cheat tools use some part of the game's code or something

 

Just now, Dissitesuxba11s said:

The Copyright Act protects the owners of creative works from the unauthorized use of those works by others. The right to prepare derivative works based upon a copyrighted work is one of the exclusive rights granted to copyright holders under the Act.

 

But I mean they weren't actually redistributing the code, right? They reverse engineered it or something. 

 

Sure, they made an uber-compatible system, but I still don't see how it could actually be qualified as using a copyrighted work.

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Just now, bob51zhang said:

 

 

But I mean they weren't actually redistributing the code, right? They reverse engineered it or something. 

 

Sure, they made an uber-compatible system, but I still don't see how it could actually be qualified as using a copyrighted work.

My understanding is that code was taken from the game, modified, and then resold or at least redistributed, and that's clearly a no no

[Dissitesuxba11s]

7 minutes ago, bob51zhang said:

 

 

But I mean they weren't actually redistributing the code, right? They reverse engineered it or something. 

 

Sure, they made an uber-compatible system, but I still don't see how it could actually be qualified as using a copyrighted work.

The code that they changed can be found on subscription based website AddictedCheats.net

[LienusLateTips]

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[M8bravo]

On 10/12/2017 at 1:36 PM, WMGroomAK said:

Epic Games, publisher of Fortnite, is suing two associates of Addicted Cheats for Copyright Infringement saying that they would have had to reverse engineer and modify the source code for Fortnite to create their aimbots.  

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/news/fortnite-publisher-epic-is-suing-two-alleged-cheaters-w508644

Honestly, I wish them the best of luck with this case as it should prove to be interesting on whether people who use aimbots in competitive titles can be not only banned, but sued for using Copyright infringing material...  Doubt that it will prevent these kinds of activities from happening, but it should hopefully get some people to think twice about it if there are some stiff economic penalties involved.

 

First saw this on HardOCP:  https://www.hardocp.com/news/2017/10/12/fortnite_publisher_epic_suing_two_alleged_cheaters

 

I suspect Epic is claiming damages from lost sales originating from the negative affect of stream sniping on the twitch audience as any proceeds from hack/mods sales are to small to qualify. They still need to have more evidence beyond "they must have reverse engineered" to get past a hearing or two but most of these lawsuits end with the defendants failing to respond. I have not seen any reports of actual follow through to collect  damages. Seems merely a cease and desist action. It would be interesting to see some well financed and motivated defendants take a case like this all the way the get a few more definitive legal rulings in this area.

[UlsterRose]

Unless the actual source code for the whole game was leaked (and we wouldn't have heard the end of it if it was), there is no way they used the game's source code, and there is no way they could have used it.

 

I don't need the source code for Mario Kart Wii to give myself 2000cc, after all.

[Bit_Guardian]

On 11/30/2017 at 6:25 AM, UlsterRose said:

Unless the actual source code for the whole game was leaked (and we wouldn't have heard the end of it if it was), there is no way they used the game's source code, and there is no way they could have used it.

 

I don't need the source code for Mario Kart Wii to give myself 2000cc, after all.

Uh, have you ever heard of disassemblers and decompilers? It's quite easy to get the source code for any program.

[Rakanoth]

On 10/16/2017 at 12:16 AM, jubjub said:

They definitely reverse engineered the program, but they wouldn't have modified the binary because that's actually stupid and so easily detectable so fortnite would just ban everyone and not waste money taking legal action. They also don't decompile anything as decompiling actually works terribly and will barely help you anyway.

 

There are a few ways they would do it after they gain an understanding of how the game works.

1. Using their knowledge of how the game works they could inject their compiled code into the process and find the memory addresses of variables and functions then use those and also modifying memory to perform their cheats functions.
2. Load an external process and manipulate the memory of the games process reading and writing to it to find certain values or write certain values to change the gameplay.
3. Start a process and then load the game inside the process you started. This way you can do the same as in 1 but you have a bit more control to do a few things.
4. Create a ring0 driver to catch certain calls by the game and perform actions in a similar way to 2 but instead allowing you to mess with a lot more.

They most likely did 1 or 2 as 4 is very rare and mostly used when you don't want to be detected (overwatch or esea for example) and 3 is used more in certain types of modding than cheating because it can be detected rather easily. In all of these they don't decompile anything and they don't modify any source.

 

Also about the last part with hooking, that's not modifying source that's modifying machine code of the process (not binary) which is completely different and could be considered illegal but it is used in so many things and it would make a lot of programs illegal like overlays, anti virus and anti cheats or even windows itself.

Sorry, this is an old thread but your information about ring0 is false. Ring0 drivers can be detected by anti-cheat programs.