Tag: Fortnite

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.

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.

In Plain English: Epic Takes On Counterfeiters


Here’s a quick tip on counterfeiting merchandise from one of the most litigious companies in the gaming industry: Don’t.

Epic Games is back in court, because the company refuses to let its lawyers have an easy week. This time around, the company isn’t going after Fortnite cheat distributors. On April 25, 2019, Epic filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois for the sale of products in connection with the registered trademark of Fortnite. The lawsuit contends that the defendants are going to great lengths to hide the extent of their operations and are selling inferior quality products designed to look like authorized merchandise.

Who are the defendants? Good question. Epic lists them as individuals and businesses residing in China and other foreign jurisdictions.

Epic seeks relief on charges of counterfeiting and trademark infringement, false designation of origin, violation of the Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and has demanded an enjoinment from using the Fortnite brand, passing off counterfeit products as genuine, that all profits gained through the counterfeiting operation be handed to Epic or that statutory damages of $2 million USD for each use of the Fortnite trademark be awarded. They also seek reasonable attorney fees and any further damages the court might award.

Epic’s attorneys are meeting with the court today (April 30) to discuss a motion for temporary transfer of defendant’s domain names, temporary asset restraint (freezing assets), expedited discovery, service of process by email, among other motions.

MMO Fallout could not ascertain the identities of the defendants, as those documents have been sealed by the court, possibly to prevent potential defendants from transferring assets in anticipation of a restraint. Similarly, there are no exhibits of such merchandise available at this time for potentially the same reason.

As always, the court dockets have been provided at our expense to you, the reader, at the Google Drive linked below.

Source: Google Drive

IPE Update: Epic Games v. Sperry Ends


Another Epic Games lawsuit has come to a close.

Plaintiff Epic Games and defendant Joseph Sperry, a.k.a “Spoezy” in a lawsuit related to the creation and distribution of cheat software for the video game Fortnite. According to the lawsuit filed by Epic, Sperry promoted, marketed, and sold the cheats to third parties for financial gain, and engaged in acts of contributory copyright infringement as well as contributing substantially to infringement by others through the sale of his software.

Sperry was hit with a DMCA violation, and has been permanently enjoined and restrained from infringement of any Epic product, current or future, as well as having any relation to infringing software of any of Epic’s copyrights, cheating at any Epic’s games, interfering with their contracts or contractual relations, unfairly competing with Epic, or assisting in any way another party in infringing on Epic’s copyrights.

Both parties have accepted the terms of the judgment and neither party may appeal this ruling. If Sperry violates the terms of the ruling, the court holds the right to award Epic liquidated damages of five thousand dollars without regard to proof of actual damages, as well as possibly other relief including attorneys’ fees, costs, as determined by the court.

Epic filed suit in the North Carolina Eastern District Court, Western Division. Epic Games has filed ten lawsuits since October 10, 2017 against cheat creators/distributors for Fortnite with most of the cases ending in simple court-ordered injunctions. All but one of those lawsuits has since been closed.

As always, MMO Fallout has provided the documents on our Google Drive. The file is listed as “Sperry-Judgment”.

Source: Google Drive

Bad Press: The Internet Falls For Another Con Artist [Fortnite Edition]


The internet has a such a vibrant imagination.

For those of you healthy adults who don’t follow Fortnite news, Epic yesterday was accused of stealing artwork and using it as a cosmetic costume in their battle royale shooter. The tweet highlighting the claim showcased a Deviant Art user’s creation submitted September 2018 compared to the Fortnite model released in November of the same year. Taken at face value, the models look very similar, almost too similar to not be a coincidence.

Here at MMO Fallout, I pride myself very highly on my BS detector. It came at a very high price, my eternal soul which upon my death will be stored in a garage in Buffalo. Not all too different from my living soul. This gift has come in very handy as in MMO Fallout’s nine years of existence, I have had to correct perhaps one or two pieces in total while breaking some stories that were later confirmed by third parties as genuine and preliminarily offering my doubts to numerous other stories that turned out to be fake.

So when yesterday’s story started hitting that Epic Games was being accused of plagiarism of a Deviant Art…artist, my detector shattered six coffee mugs and bolted down the street singing Queen. Maybe it’s the difficult task of taking seriously a person whose username comes from a television show for toddlers. Maybe it’s because Deviant Art is a bastion of plagiarism under the guise of “this is my OC character, plz donut steal.” Perhaps I just found it very hard to believe that an Epic Games artist would look at this drawing and think “I need to rush this into production yesterday,” funneling the skin from original post to seeing it to designing a knockoff to modeling to testing to release all within two months. That’s an artist with pull.

That could be it. It could also be that I’m aware of Deviant Art allowing people to change photos without altering the “user submitted” date. Such as with this 2009 creation.

The story didn’t fool many people outside of the reactionary Youtube news vlogger circuit, but it did manage to snag the attention and coverage of none other than Forbes Magazine. And why not? Their coverage of the faux-controversy has gathered nearly 140,000 views as of this publishing, far more than discussion of The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead, and the Epic Chinese Avengers poster. Web hosting doesn’t come cheap, folks, and clickbait doesn’t have time for verifying your facts. If you think about it, the fact that the accusation happened is news in and of itself. Basic investigative skills are for nerds like Twitter user Ding Dong who decided to check the website’s cached version and found that the art was swapped. Maybe Forbes should hire Ding Dong instead.

Perhaps the other side of this coin is the general habit of the public to immediately believe anything bad about an individual/entity that they don’t personally like. This claim was instantly believed by large swaths of the internet because Epic did a thing and made a game they wanted exclusive, so why wouldn’t this no-good scumbag literally-Hitler company steal artwork from an innocent 13 year old? It boggles the mind to think that a company you don’t personally care for wouldn’t be guilty of every half-baked accusation that gets laid out over Twitter.

But of course that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Best Buy Thanks Fortnite For Boosted Holiday Sales


Fortnite: It didn’t just save Epic Games, it evidently also gave Best Buy quite the boost this holiday season.

The Wall Street Journal published an article on Thursday noting that Best Buy Co. gave credit to the insanely popular Battle Royale game for boosting its own holiday sales in 2018. How so? According to the company’s sales charts, the popularity of Fortnite spurred a surge in purchases of headphones and other game accessories.

Best Buy is so sure that Fortnite is behind this surge in purchases that CFO Corie Barry called the game a “phenomenon” that “lifted all boats in gaming.” Strong sales in gaming, wearables, appliances, and smart-home products helped to outweigh a hit to mobile phone spending.

Source: Wall Street Journal

US Copyright Office: No, the Carlton Is Not Copyrightable


Alfonso Ribeiro is best known for his character Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Ribeiro came back into the public spotlight after launching lawsuits against Epic Games and Take-Two Interactive over copyright claims that he owns the famous dance popularized by the TV Show, informally known as The Carlton. The lawsuit alleges that both developers used The Carlton without permission, that Ribeiro is the sole owner, and that he deserves compensation for use of his creation.

Unfortunately for Ribeiro the Copyright office has been rather explicit regarding the copyright status for simple dance routines: They can’t be copyrighted. The Carlton as it turns out is no different.

In a response to his copyright application, the US Copyright Office officially refused registration for The Dance by Alfonso Ribeiro – Variation B, and noted in no uncertain terms that the dance qualified as a simple dance routine and could not be classified as a choreographic work. Choreography is legally defined as a composition and arrangement of a related series of dance movements and patterns organized into an integrated, coherent, and expressive whole. Choreographic works do not include social dance steps and simple routines, and must contain a sufficient amount of choreographic authorship.

As The Carlton is a routine consisting of three dance steps, it is not registrable as a choreographic work. The Copyright office went further in questioning whether or not Ribeiro was even the sole author of the work.

Epic and Take Two are currently fighting legal battles against a growing number of performers and internet celebrities over the use of popular dance moves in Fortnite and NBA 2K. Now that the copyright office has spoken on Ribeiro’s ownership status, it seems likely that Epic’s next move will be a motion to dismiss.

Source: U.S. Copyright Office

IPE Update: Brandon Lucas Files Motion to Dismiss Epic Lawsuit


Brandon Lucas has filed a motion to dismiss in North Carolina court this week. Lucas is currently being sued by Epic Games over causes of copyright infringement, breach of contract, interference with contractual relations, and unfair/deceptive trade & unfair competition in relation to alleged cheating and promotion of cheats in Fortnite.

The Defendant Brandon Lucas hereby files a motion to dismiss the complaint. The motion date will be scheduled by the Court after proper notice to the Plaintiff, Epic Games, Inc. The Defendant, Brandon Lucas, will rely on the affidavit submitted.

In his motion to dismiss, Lucas claims that he does not own the Youtube channel in question, that the videos posted are not his, that he does not own or advertise any cheats, and that generally Epic has the wrong guy.

Epic filed the lawsuit back in October against Lucas and another defendant. Epic is alleging that Lucas owns, operates, and profits from a website selling cheats and buying accounts for Fortnite. MMO Fallout will update once the court reaches a decision.

The adventurous among you can check out the link below for both the original filing and motion to dismiss. Be aware that the original filing contains all evidence and runs over 160 pages.

(Source: Google Drive)

Epic Games Wins Default Judgement As Defendant Fails to Respond


It’s been a while since MMO Fallout followed up on Epic Games v. C.R., the lawsuit where Epic brought complaint against a defendant who turned out to be a minor. C.R. was being accused of continuing to cheat in Fortnite, and promote said cheats through Youtube videos/streaming, in spite of over a dozen account bans by Epic. Epic filed a copyright claim against his video, defendant counterclaimed, and Epic filed suit as required by copyright law.

Most of the updates on this case have revolved around sealing and redacting documents to remove C.R.’s name from the record, so I’ve taken the liberty of skipping their coverage as to not bore all of you. The last couple of months have brought some small updates, ultimately leading to a decision within the past couple of days. Those of you who have followed the case know that C.R.’s mother wrote a letter to the court asking for them to dismiss the case, and I pointed out at the time that this may be damaging as it could be construed by the court as an official response and a motion to dismiss. I wasn’t wrong, and the court accepted the letter and interpreted it as an official motion to dismiss.

The motion was denied because it didn’t properly address the plaintiff’s claims, a premise that shouldn’t be surprising when you consider that it wasn’t written by a lawyer, or intended to be an actual legal filing. Following the court’s denial of the motion to dismiss in July, Epic Games once again filed a motion for entry of default, as outside of the initial letter from C.R.’s mother, they have not actually responded to Epic’s complaint.

After continuing to miss deadlines for response, the court this week granted Epic’s motion for default judgement, meaning Epic will likely get what it wants. And what does Epic want? Let’s go back to the prayer for relief in Epic’s initial complaint.

Epic wants the court to enter judgement in their favor and adjudge the defendant to have infringed on Epic’s copyright, to have contributory infringement, to have breached the terms of service, to have interfered in contracts between Epic and its other players through their cheating, and for the court to declare that the infringements were willing in nature. As punishment, Epic has demanded that the defendant be permanently barred from infringing or contributing to infringement, ie; cheating in their games and distributing/promoting said cheats, as well as deleting any videos showing said cheats and copies of said software off of his computer.

Now let’s talk money. Epic has demanded the maximum statutory damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504, which allows up to $30,000 (as the court considers just) with an exception for cases where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving willful infringement, in which case the maximum damage shoots up to $150,000 (again, as the court considers just). Alternately, Epic may ask for the “actual damages,” which were not specified. In addition, Epic has asked for attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenditures, as well as any further relief the court may deem proper.

Will Epic get paid? In my humble opinion, we’re more likely to see this end in a bankruptcy filing by the family.