Tag: Epic Games

Epic Games Sues To Stop Legal Threats Over Fortnite Dance


Infamous for their reluctance to engage in courtroom shenanigans, Epic Games has filed a lawsuit. The company is pursuing Sick Picnic Media and Matthew Geiler in a move that can only be described as “you’re not taking us to court, we’re taking you to court.”

The lawsuit is over something old, something new, something licensed, and something…orange. Matthew Geiler may be best known to the internet memesters union as the guy behind that dancing pumpkin video that went viral many many years ago. The lawsuit stems from the use of the pumpkin man dance in an emote available in Epic Games’ lesser known title; Fortnite.

“This case concerns one of those emotes: a Halloween-themed emote called “Pump It Up” that Epic Games made available for a single day shortly before Halloween in the fall of 2019 as part of its annual Fortnitemares event (the “Pump It Up Emote”). In the Pump It Up Emote, the avatar performs a brief dance to a Halloween-themed song developed by Epic Games while the head of whatever avatar the player has selected is transformed into a jack-o’-lantern face designed by Epic Games.”

This isn’t the first time Epic has been sued over the use of dances in Fortnite, although every single one of those suits were voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs. What makes this one different is that Epic is suing the dance creator for a preliminary declaration of non-infringement. Similar to their lawsuit against Acceleration Bay, Epic has taken the preventative step of asking the court to decide on a potential lawsuit before the would-be plaintiff ever files it.

Oh and unlike the previous lawsuits, Epic Games actually licensed the dance. The lawsuit goes on to state that Epic Games and Geiler actually licensed the use of the dance, which Geiler happily admits to on Facebook (making for great evidence that Epic handed to the court). Geiler actually says “Luckily they did a licensing deal with me
ahead of time!” Despite admitting to having a licensing deal in place, Geiler has apparently been submitting cease & desist notices to Epic demanding that they remove the emote. Epic now pleads the court for a ruling of non-infringement.

 

Source: Lawsuit

IPE Update: Epic Games v. ABC Moving Forward


Epic Games is moving forward with its lawsuit against Acceleration Bay (ABC) following an order denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss.

Taking the initiative upon itself, Epic Games filed suit several months ago against Acceleration Bay, seeking a declaratory judgment that their game Fortnite did not infringe on patents owned by the defendant. The lawsuit was predicated on contacts between the two parties where ABC appeared to be offering a “mutual resolution” to avoid potential litigation, as it believed that Epic Games had infringed on a patent owned related to network technology. Epic got snarky with its response, noting that ABC appears to exist solely to litigate patents it buys in bulk from third parties.

Last month Acceleration Bay filed a motion to dismiss on grounds of lack of subject matter jurisdiction (wrong court) and lack of controversy (there must be reasonable anticipation of a lawsuit in order to file for a declaratory judgment). Following oral arguments on October 22, the court denied the motion. Acceleration Bay must file an answer to the lawsuit no later than November 5.

As always, MMO Fallout has uploaded the relevant dockets to our Google Drive. You can view the decision at this link. The file included a motion to seal certain exhibits so you may see some of our documents get replaced/removed/redacted in the future depending on circumstances.

In Plain English: The Grinch Who Spoiled Fortnite


Dear internet,

That video game nondisclosure agreement that your buddies tell you doesn’t matter because “it’s video games” and thus not enforceable in court? It’s probably enforceable in court. In fact it’s very likely enforceable.

To the shock of the world and heaven in the sky, Epic Games has filed a lawsuit this week against a user of Fortnite. The lawsuit targets Ronald Sykes (aka “@Snipa_King2k,” aka “@FNGzus,” aka “@invisiblellama9”) and alleges that Sykes spoiled the surprise of Fortnite Chapter 2 in breach of a nondisclosure agreement.

“Epic is suing Sykes because he broke his contractual obligation to keep Epic’s secrets about the upcoming season of Fortnite®, Epic’s popular video game. Information is currency. Sykes cashed in on what he learned as a User Experience tester for Epic. He did so at the expense of Epic and those in the Fortnite community who were anxiously awaiting the new season of Fortnite only to have some of Epic’s planned surprises spoiled by Sykes’ leaks.”

Sykes was a member of the User Testing Experience, which is fancy talk for confidential beta tester. He along with a number of others were given the opportunity to test Fortnite’s big new update, presumably so it would be as fine tuned as possible before Epic released it to the masses. Sykes allegedly disclosed those secrets before they were meant to be public.

Fortnite Chapter 2’s reveal for those who weren’t glued to their computer for the weekend was massive. The servers went offline for two days as the game was literally engulfed in a black hole, resulting in all sorts of streaming records being broken as people watched a black hole in anticipation of what would come next. The event had been preceded by easter eggs being dropped into the game throughout the past seasons of the game, and ultimately it was a major product of Epic’s work.

Epic is seeking civil relief under the Defense Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) as well as the North Carolina Trade Secrets Protection Act (NCTSPA). The DTSA allows for damages for actual loss, any unjust enrichment caused by the leak of trade secrets, and in cases of willful and malicious disclosure, exemplary damages may be awarded of up to two times the actual loss/unjust enrichment.

The NCTSPA is similar in that the language allows for compensation for economic loss or unjust enrichment, as well as punitive damages in cases of willful violation. The lawsuit alleges that Sykes created several Twitter accounts to leak the new map introduced with Fortnite Chapter 2 as well as a number of new features coming to the game.

Epic seeks injunctive relief as well as attorneys’ costs and fees, and economic damages as well as punitive damages as allowed under law. As always, MMO Fallout has provided the relevant documents at our Google Drive for those who wish to read them.

Source: Google Drive

Not Massive: Fortnite Corroborates Child’s Knowledge of Guns


Who said video games would never offer real world experience?

Today’s human interest piece comes to us from a child custody case in the Eastern District of New York. The petitioner is the father of a child who had petitioned the court for the return of his son to Ecuador. The child, a nine year old, had been retained in the United States by the mother and without the consent of the father since mid-2018. The father (petitioner) owns a gun shop and warehouse in Ecuador and is a dealer of firearms and accessories (Editor’s note: It should be noted that the firearm business is legal/legitimate). During the custody hearing, the child testified to the father having guns in the house, on display, within the reach of a child. How did the child know the identity of the guns? Fortnite.

According to the testimony, the child was able to verify what he had seen in the house including a silencer and a shotgun because he had seen something similar in Fortnite.

The story does not have a great ending, as the court eventually ruled that the child would be returned to Ecuador under Hague Convention. Still, the court did not seem to have any reason to doubt the child’s game-based knowledge.

The full entry can be found at the link below. Content Warning: The document below has been included for those who wish to view it. It contains numerous detailed allegations of the repeated physical and verbal abuse of a child by a parental figure.

Source: Eastern District of New York

IPE Update: Acceleration Bay Files MTD Against Epic Games


Nearly two months ago Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Acceleration Bay LLC seeking declaratory judgment from the court in regard to allegations that Epic was using technology owned by AB in one of its many patents. Acceleration Bay filed a motion to dismiss on lack of subject matter jurisdiction (wrong court) as well as lack of controversy. In order to receive a declaratory judgment, a plaintiff must show the court that there is very likely to be a lawsuit over the matter.

“The Court should dismiss this action because there is no immediate case or controversy between Epic Games and Acceleration Bay. Epic Games seeks declaratory judgment of non-infringement of seven patents owned by Acceleration Bay. But in the pre-suit communications that Epic Games alleges gave rise to this action, Acceleration Bay did not provide Epic Games with any claim charts or infringement analysis and Acceleration Bay did not threaten Epic Games with litigation. Instead, the parties were engaged in preliminary licensing discussions, when Epic Games abruptly filed this action. The Complaint fails to allege facts sufficient to confer declaratory subject matter jurisdiction over this action, dictating dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1).”

For its part, Acceleration Bay has denied ever threatening Epic with a lawsuit (despite evidence from Epic showing just that) but instead offering a “mutually acceptable path forward” which may end up on the list of veiled threats alongside “nice business you got here, it’d be a shame of something were to happen to it.”

“Acceleration Bay never threatened Epic Games with litigation. For example, on April 30, 2019 and May 8, 2019, Acceleration Bay’s representative (Mr. Garland) stated in an email that Acceleration Bay is “interested in arranging an introductory meeting [to] provide an overview of Acceleration Bay and to agree to a mutually acceptable path forward” and that Acceleration Bay “remain[s] interested in trying to reach a business solution with Epic Games.” Declaration of Paul Andre filed herewith (“Andre Decl.”), Ex. 1 at 1.”

See? No threats, just wanting to reach an amicable solution (and sue if you don’t meet our demands). If you wanted to see the “generic, substance-free form letter” that Epic received, I have included it below.

As always, MMO Fallout has provided the court dockets in our Google Drive at the attached link. Download it, share it, do whatever you want with it. It is 74 pages in whole so get yourself a nice cup of coffee before you dive in.

More on this story as it develops.

In Plain English: Epic and the Generic, Substance-Free Patent Troll


Epic Games is once again back in court, except this time they are taking on a more defensive tone.

As of July 18, Epic Games has filed a lawsuit against Acceleration Bay LLC regarding some bad blood between the two companies that has boiled over in the past few years. According to court dockets filed in the Northern District of California, Epic Games is asking for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement regarding seven patents owned by the defendant.

According to Epic’s filing, defendant Acceleration Bay LLC in early 2015 acquired a number of patents from The Boeing Company. These patents cover a computer network and/or broadcast channel with an m-regular, incomplete topology. I’ll let the docket try to explain some of it, but it has to do with how computers interact on a network.

  • The claims of these patents all require that (1) each participant/computer in the network must have connections to at least three other neighboring participants.
  • The claims of these patents all require that (2) the network must be “m-regular” where each participant is connected to the exact same number, m, of neighbor participants.
  • The claims of these patents all require that (3) the network must be incomplete – m must be at least two less than the total number of participants.
  • 31. In other words, each participant must be connected to at least three neighbor participants, and no participant can be connected to all of the other participants in the network.

Fast forward to 2018 and Acceleration Bay’s lawyers sent a letter to Epic with allegedly no explanation or information, and claimed that Epic was infringing on their patents and would require a license. The letter was apparently so poorly vetted by AB’s legal team that they didn’t notice that the threat still contained the name of an unrelated company that AB had presumably also threatened over its patents.

As they say, bad form.

Additionally, Epic asserted that Acceleration Bay couldn’t get through its letter without completely lying about its own existence, claiming that it was founded in 2012 (it was founded in August 2014), and calling itself a “technology incubator” (it isn’t) that “partners with inventors, corporations and entrepreneurs to accelerate growth in creating innovative companies.” AB doesn’t accelerate growth in anything. Acceleration Bay, according to Epic’s attorneys, does not provide any product or service whatsoever, and exists only to monetize patents acquired from third parties. According to Epic’s attorney’s, AB is exclusively in the market of monetizing patents.

On July 10, representatives of both companies sat down to a teleconference and evidently nothing was accomplished. AB’s attorneys don’t appear to understand what their own patent covers, or how Epic operates their games, as Epic states in the court dockets that many online multiplayer games, especially those being asserted in this lawsuit, do not function the way that the patent would cover, as player networks are communicating with Epic’s servers and not each other.

Epic has assembled its Avengers team of lawyers from the offices of Winston & Strawn to convince the court for a preemptive declaration that Epic is not infringing on any patents alleged in this case. Acceleration had not filed a lawsuit against Epic, however the threatening letters are enough for Epic to go to the court and demand an answer to force the letters to stop. Acceleration Bay has 21 days to respond to the lawsuit.

As always, MMO Fallout has acquired at our own cost the dockets for this case and they can be found on our Google Drive. The docket itself is linked here, as Acceleration.pdf, or it will be in a folder titled “Acceleration” once more dockets are uploaded.

I paid way too much for this article. If you really like patents, I recommend checking out the docket because it’s about 25 pages of the actual lawsuit and then 350+ of the patents at dispute presented at evidence. Our condolences go out to the court clerk who had to print this out and file it.

Epic Will Eat The Cost Of Refunds For Shenmue III Backers


It’s been a tumultuous month for Ys Net and Epic Games. There have been several updates following the announcement that Shenmue III would be going Epic Store exclusive, and that gamers who had backed the title on PC for the promise of Steam keys would not be receiving them. From the get-go, Ys Net and Deep Silver confirmed in no uncertain terms that refunds would not be granted to customers who felt that they had been lied to and no longer wanted to back the game.

Flash forward several weeks and it looks like either the Shenmue III team has buckled to public pressure or Epic Games has swooped in to do some damage control of its own. Tim Sweeney announced via Twitter that Epic will be funding the cost of all Kickstarter refunds in order to not affect the game’s funding. He also promised that should Epic acquire publishing to a game after they had already promised rewards on other stores, that they would work with those stores to ensure backers get what they originally paid for.

Epic is funding the cost of all Kickstarter refunds resulting from Shenmue III’s move to the Epic Games store, so that refunds won’t reduce Ys Net’s development funding. When future games go Epic-exclusive after offering crowdfunding rewards on other PC stores, we’ll either coordinate with colleagues at the other stores to ensure key availability in advance, or guarantee refunds at announcement time.

Source: Twitter

How To Avoid A Lawsuit #1: Fortnite Cheater Edition


Good afternoon, internet.

In honor of my upcoming completely fictional cookbook “A Million Ways To Roast Twitter Users,” I have decided to put out a new column series expanding on the In Plain English brand. The series is titled “How To Avoid a Lawsuit” which you would know if you read the title of this piece. Every so often I am going to talk about ways you, the user, can avoid being hauled into court and be forced to hire me once I graduate from law school. I don’t offer family discounts.

Before we begin, I’d like to insert some disclaimers; (1) I am not yet a lawyer and as such none of this should be taken as legal advice, (2) this column is meant for edutainment purposes only and while it will lower your chances of being hauled into court, it cannot guarantee a 100% success rate. Check your local laws before applying, (3) some of the steps are based on an assumption that you have done something bad. MMO Fallout does not condone whatever these actions are, the suggestions are merely in response to you actually doing them, and (4) most of your problems can be solved by simply following step one.

For the first HTAL, I’m going to discuss Epic Games, Fortnite, and people cheating in Fortnite. Those of you who read MMO Fallout or at least keep up with our In Plain English articles will be aware that Epic has presently hauled at least a dozen Fortnite cheaters into court. None of the cases have actually gone to trial with the rest being voluntarily dismissed with the plaintiffs agreeing to permanent injunctions against the defendant and the threat of deep fines should they violate the terms of the settlement. Still, it provides an answer to every Fortnite cheater who has asked “what’s Epic going to do? Sue me?” Possibly!

So let’s go down the list of how to not get hauled into court, Fortnite Edition.

1. Don’t Cheat At Fortnite

This one is the easiest and essentially acts as patient zero for the rest of the list. You shouldn’t be cheating at competitive multiplayer games anyway because it makes you look like a pathetic rat creature, but given the history and details surrounding Epic’s Scared Straight program with cheaters, you really don’t want to cheat in Fortnite. It’s not good.

Like I said, this is basically patient zero. Epic to my knowledge has never sued anyone for not cheating at Fortnite, but they have for cheating at Fortnite. So if you don’t want to be hauled into court by a company with the kind of money to bribe just about every developer on the planet Earth, don’t cheat at Fortnite.

2. If You Get Banned, Stay Banned

One big connecting trait of Epic’s lawsuit defendants are that they kept returning to the game after being banned for cheating. It’s like insanity but for stupid people. I’m not aware of any Fortnite-related lawsuits where a person was banned once and then Epic immediately launched into court, and of the numerous dockets I have read the defendants in question were banned 20+ times and in one or two cases might have been using automated software to create a new account.

If you for one reason or another decide to cheat at Fortnite and you get caught and Epic bans your account, just take the L. Accept your ban, maybe work on being a better person, and go do something else with your time. You’ll thank me a whole lot more when you are not hauled into court.

3. Do Not Upload Your Cheat Videos To YouTube

This is another major connecting trait between Fortnite lawsuit defendants. If there is one thing that Epic hates more than people cheating in Fortnite, it’s people putting videos on Youtube of themselves cheating at Fortnite, and absolutely people using those videos to advertise where you can get those cheats. The more subscribers and views you have, the more likely these videos will show up on Epic’s radar, the more likely they will haul you into court, and odds are the more they will demand from you in damages.

See this one is actually really important because if you do get sued, this is going to affect what Epic wants out of you. Normally Epic does not actually ask for money with their lawsuits against cheaters. Instead they basically push the lawsuit into a settlement with the defendant agreeing on injunctions. Don’t use Epic products, don’t cheat at Epic products, don’t create or distribute cheats for Epic products. On the other hand, Epic has a habit of assuming that anyone advertising Fortnite cheats has a monetary investment in those Fortnite cheats, and that’s when they start making demands for monetary damages. Trust me, Epic has the resources to wring you dry if they want to, and you are not in the right.

4. Do Not Counterclaim A Copyright Strike

In order to dive into this tip, we must take a moment to talk about fair use. Fair Use allows for the use of copyrighted material in certain purposes such as education, parody, or criticism. Despite what the internet has told you, the Fair Use doctrine is not a “you can’t sue me” button. Think of Fair Use as more akin to a trap card in Yu-Gi-Oh! You have to wait for the opponent to make a move before you can use it. Fair Use comes up at the lawsuit and is actually an admission of copyright infringement. What you are saying is that while you did infringe on the entity’s copyright, the extent is legal. There are no definite measures on what is fair use, just past rulings that can be used as a metric, that is up to the court to decide on a case by case basis.

This takes us back to our discussion. With people who post Fortnite cheat videos to Youtube, Epic has predicated lawsuits by issuing copyright strikes taking down the person’s cheating videos. When the person files a counterclaim, that is when Epic sues. When you counterclaim a copyright strike, what you are essentially saying is “I am in the right, and I will see you in court.” After that, the copyright holder’s only option to further their claim is to file a lawsuit. Which is exactly what Epic has been doing.

5. Don’t Cheat At Fortnite

Don’t cheat at Fortnite. Do all of these things and you are probably guaranteed to not get hauled into court by Epic Games for cheating at Fortnite.

IPE Update: Epic Games Brings Financial Suplex On Counterfeiters


It may not surprise you, the enlightened MMO Fallout reader, to hear that none of Epic’s roughly one thousand (Chinese and otherwise) defendants showed up or even answered the summons to appear in court regarding a lawsuit for Fortnite counterfeit merchandise. I talked about this briefly at the end of April and haven’t issued much in the way of updates because there hasn’t been anything substantial to talk about.

By the way, I’m not joking that this lawsuit started with roughly a thousand defendants. 923 in fact of which nearly 200 are included in this judgment. Over the course of the last two months, Epic has been slowly dropping defendants from the list, presumably the random accounts that could never be tied to an actual person. They were successful in forcibly transferring domains, freezing assets, and more.

The good news for Epic is that none of the thousand defendants bothered to answer the summons or show up, making it a whole lot easier to get the judge to sign an order of default judgment which Judge Guzman did on June 27. Far from simply imposing a permanent enjoinder on defendants from counterfeiting more of Epic’s products, and good luck enforcing that on some pop tent company in Shenzhen, the order goes quite a bit further. Judge Guzman awarded Epic Games $1 million in damages from each defendant.

He also ordered that Western Union must within two days permanently block all money transfers to the defendants. Ebay, Paypal, ContextLogic, and AliPay (and all of its related entities) have been ordered to permanently restrain all accounts associated with the defendants from transferring any money within two days. All monies within the accounts connected to the defendants has been seized and will be paid out to Epic and until the judgment amount is fully paid all new accounts created by the defendants will be seized and funds transferred to Epic as well. Epic also has the authority to serve any financial institution that is identified to have been accessed by the defendants, with the financial institute required to freeze their assets, remove their ability to transfer funds, and release all monies held on the accounts to Epic to ensure full payment.

As always, the legal documents have been uploaded to the MMO Fallout Google Drive, at our expense, for your perusal.

NM: Grab Enter the Gungeon Free on Epic Game Store


Epic Game Store has unveiled their next free title: Enter the Gungeon. Available at no cost outside of downloading and using the Epic Game Store, Enter the Gungeon will be available until June 20 after which the free game will be Rebel Galaxy. Add it to your account now, keep it forever.

It should be noted that the Epic Store edition is notably missing platform achievements as the client does not currently support them. Enter the Gungeon does have in-game achievements.

Source: Epic Games