Lawsuit – Page 11 – MMO Fallout

In Plain English: Epic Sues Paragon Cheat Maker

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Epic Games has launched a lawsuit against German gamer Robin Kreibich under allegations that the defendant violated copyright by selling cheat software for their upcoming MOBA game, Paragon. The program, known as SystemCheats, claims to be the most powerful hack for Paragon and sells as a monthly subscription for approximately $10/month.

The hack promises to give players perfect aiming with “smooth aim” to make their movement seem more natural and presumably less likely for manual detection. According to the creator, the hack is “fully undetected” and can be used with no risk for being banned. Evidently that immunity hasn’t protected Kreibich from court, but the more intrepid viewers might be wondering why a German citizen is being sued in a US district court in California by a game developer based in Maryland. The answer involves some legal wrangling.

Epic Games issued a takedown of Kreibich’s Youtube videos demonstrating how the hack works. When a person files a counter-notice to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown, by Youtube’s own terms of service they consent that any legal matters will be taken care of in Youtube’s judicial district.

It also helps Epic Games that the lawsuit be held in California’s northern district court. Back in 2013, Blizzard won its lawsuit against Ceiling Fan Software simply under the breach of contract charge. The courts agreed that the cheat software was sold with the knowledge that it would breach the contract between World of Warcraft and its users, and the court awarded $7 million in damages and an injunction against Ceiling Fan Software from selling, developing, licensing, or allowing others to use their bot software.

Epic Games is demanding a trial by jury, as well as unspecified damages including reimbursement of their own legal fees.

More coverage to come.

(Source: Scribd)

IPE Update: Run Over By An Internet Semi Update

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Small In Plain English update for the James Romine V James Stanton case (Digital Homicide V Jim Sterling). Following the recent motion to dismiss the case, James Romine has filed his own motion to dismiss the dismissal. To put it bluntly, and to utilize a logical argument that will make much more sense in the next paragraph or two, the case has jumped on the crazy train and left logic bleeding on the highway of justice about two hundred miles back.

First case of interest, in order to prove that Jim Sterling does business in Arizona, James Romine actually purchased a t-shirt from the Jimquisition website and had it shipped to his address. The newly introduced evidence includes a receipt and a photo of the “Jim Fucking Sterling Son” t-shirt ordered from the website. Romine takes a moment of the court’s time to note that his brother coined that term. Romine also notes that he has been subscribed to Sterling’s Patreon for three months now.

In what appears to be a case of lacking awareness, Romine is now invoking the case of Ventura V Kyle as precedent for defamation in cases where the defendant was not in the same state as the trial. Ventura V Kyle is described as “a case with no winners,” where Jesse Ventura sued Navy Seal Chris Kyle after the latter claimed to have punched Ventura in a bar. Ventura’s reputation was severely damaged after he continued the lawsuit against Kyle’s estate after Chris Kyle was fatally shot at a gun range in Texas in 2013, the events adapted into the film American Sniper.

Don’t worry, it gets stranger. Romine goes on to compare the case as being “precisely the same” as being run over by a series of cars. I’m going to attach the full paragraph because paraphrasing wouldn’t do the full quote justice.

“It is precisely the same as being hit with a car in Arizona by an out of state resident passing through. In this case, The Defendant’s ‘car’ is actually an Internet semi with a camera attached to display the show of The Plaintiff being run over to The Defendant’s subscribers and then is followed by a thousand more cars following The Defendant’s lead.”

To sum where the case is up to this point: James Romine filed a motion to amend his complaint, which Sterling responded to with a motion to dismiss said amendment as pointless because the defense believes it can have the case thrown out before it goes to court primarily on the grounds of lacking jurisdiction and that his comments were a matter of opinion. Romine filed to have the dismissal dismissed, making claims that Arizona’s district court does indeed have the jurisdiction and that Sterling’s comments are a matter of fact.

Get it? Got it? Good. More on the story as it develops.

IPE Update: Motion To Dismiss Digital Homicide Lawsuit Presented

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Romine V Stanton refers to the ongoing lawsuit between James Romine (Digital Homicide) and James Stanton (Jim Sterling) over alleged defamation by the latter causing damage to the reputation and sales of the former. Last we heard, James Romine had filed a motion to amend his complaint and is now suing for over $15 million in damages, including $5 million in emotional distress. The defense, on April 5th, filed a motion to delay their response which was granted with the new deadline being May 5th.

Well the deadline is here and the response was filed yesterday, finally giving us a response from Stanton and his lawyers, of which he has two. James Romine is still being represented by himself, owing to the fact that he can’t get a lawyer to take his case. The brunt of the 31 page response aims to persuade the judge to dismiss the case on the grounds that Arizona does not have jurisdiction over the case, seeing as Stanton has no presence in the state, makes no sales in the state, nor is he aware if anyone does or does not watch his videos from Arizona. Humorously, he also notes that he has never even visited the state.

Stanton’s response is a motion to dismiss the case, defending his writing/videos as protected speech and that commentary on DHS is clearly opinion. I’ll let Stanton sum it up:

I am appalled that my opinions and writings on the subject of DHS, its games, and its use of an alias on the Steam service to distribute its games can serve as a basis for a libel lawsuit. As a writer and entertainer, I am well within my legal right to express my opinions, disclose my discoveries, and be part of online commentary regarding video game companies like DHS and video game distribution services like Steam. The Article is clearly protected speech and use of words like “chicanery,” “the Wet Bandits,” “weirdness” and “weeeeird” to describe DHS is clearly opinion.

MMO Fallout will have an update hopefully early next week on how Judge Tuchi rules.

IPE Update: Judge Strikes Digital Homicide Complaint

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Small In Plain English update on the Digital Homicide v James Stanton (Jim Sterling) lawsuit that took place over the past week. On April 13th, James Romine filed a 77 page amended complaint against Stanton. If you don’t have a drink and perhaps a snack, don’t bother getting up to get one. This is simply an alteration of the previously submitted lawsuit and doesn’t contain much new information other than an increased demand for damages. Romine is now suing for $15 million in total, including $4 million in product damages, $5 million in emotional distress, and $6 million in punitive damages.

As we’ve reported in our previous coverage, plaintiff James Romine (Digital Homicide) is not represented by a lawyer, which might have come in handy since Arizona court requires you to file a motion to amend. Romaine did not do so, and as such the judge has struck down the amended complaint. As part of the ruling, Judge Tuchi also gave James Romine until the 27th in order to file a motion to amend.

As always, MMO Fallout will update you will continued coverage as it appears.

(Source: Arizona court dockets)

In Plain English: Bassett V. Electronic Arts Dismissed

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It’s been over a year since we last checked in on the curious case of Justin Bassett and Electronic Arts, so a brief history may be in order:

Justin Bassett sued Electronic Arts over the company shutting down their game servers even though the games are still available in stores with online play advertised on the box. EA attempted to take the case into arbitration, citing their EULA, and Bassett argued that the arbitration clause was not valid as it was added later on. EA argued that Bassett agreed to the new EULA when he attempted to log into the online servers. Last year, the judge sided with Electronic Arts and threw the case into arbitration.

As I said back then, we will probably never know what the final ruling was as arbitration results are almost always sealed to the public. What we do know is that, as of last month, the case has been dismissed with prejudice.

Plaintiff Justin T. Bassett (“Plaintiff”) and defendant Electronic Arts Inc., the parties to the above-captioned action, stipulate and agree, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), that Plaintiff hereby does and shall voluntarily dismiss the above-captioned action, and all of the claims within it, with prejudice.

What does that mean? Dismissal with prejudice bars Bassett from bringing an action on the same claim in the future.

Digital Homicide, Jim Sterling, Lawyers, Slander, And A Lesson In Legality

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Digital Homicide is an enigma. All but one of its games carries a “mostly negative” rating on Steam, its games are critically panned mostly for being lazy, uninspired hobby projects cobbled together with pre-made Unity assets, and the developer is constantly getting into childish squabbles with internet critics like Jim Sterling. Despite the overwhelmingly negative response to his games, Digital Homicide continues to pump out more and more asset flips. As of this writing, DH has 18 games on Greenlight.

If you don’t follow Jim Sterling on Youtube, you may not be aware of the ongoing feud between the Youtube personality and Digital Homicide over the former’s very negative coverage of the latter’s video games. The back and forth banter culminated in a rather lengthy interview last July in which Digital Homicide threatened to sue Sterling. Nearly a year later and it looks like Digital Homicide is making good on their word, and has filed a lawsuit in Arizona district court.

Now neither side are discussing the details of the lawsuit, and for good reason. Talking about a court case in the middle of litigation can backfire and potentially lose the case. Basically lawyers are afraid that the person will say something stupid or incriminating and wind up blowing their arguments. James of Digital Homicide wants to make the details of the case very clear once it is over.

I have an excellent lawyer very interested in this case but they only take retainer. Very few lawyers take contingency now for defamation lawsuits. For this reason I will also be documenting the process of this lawsuit(not the contents or personal information) and making it publicly viewable after the case is over so that others in similar dire situations can figure out how to defend themselves from online harassers and defamers.

Very few lawyers take contingency for defamation lawsuits because doing so would likely mean not getting paid. Luckily, you don’t have to wait for the case to be over to view, as MMO Fallout has access to the Arizona public court records and will be adding this case to our In Plain English coverage.

Despite his claim of an “excellent lawyer,” James has gone ahead and filed the lawsuit early. An attempt at crowdfunding his lawsuit of Sterling was quickly shut down over claims that people were charging and then quickly using chargebacks to hit Romine with fees. Court dockets list James Oliver Romine Jr. as a “Pro Se Litigant,” meaning Romine is representing himself without a lawyer. Romine is claiming in excess of ~~$2.636 million~~ $10 million USD in libel property damage. Romine has invoked 28 US Code 1332 which grants district court jurisdiction in civil matters where the damages exceed $75 thousand and is between citizens.

Interestingly, the case also invokes International Shoe Co. V Washington, a lawsuit from 1945 in which the courts ruled that a shoe company with salesmen that sold shoes in the state were subject to Washington jurisdiction when the state sued to recover unpaid unemployment fees. Romine is claiming in the dockets that Sterling’s videos being available in Arizona is enough to give jurisdiction even though Sterling himself does not live within the district.

Romine is suing Sterling and claims in his blog post that he will be suing the people leaving anonymous mocking comments, whom he believes to be overseas competitors, and is simply building a case file for the time being.

If you believe being anonymous will prevent you from recieving said justice you will be surpised when the summons shows up, this goes for competitors in foreign markets using alternate accounts as you may be foreign by you will be sued in the US. This is the first case. More are expected to be filed soon.

What Romine may not understand about US defamation/slander law is that winning the lawsuit is heavily slanted against the plaintiff, especially when dealing with a public figure such as himself. The plaintiff is required to prove, beyond a doubt, that their reputations were harmed as a result of the allegedly slanderous material. In order to prove harm, Romine must provide quantifiable damages.

Romine claims he has been falsely accused of:

Stealing artwork
Stealing assets
Flipping projects with no work put in
Doxing
Had products misrepresented with intention to do damage
Of illegally using another companies name
Conducting illegal business activities
Impersonating someone
Being incompetent and unable to perform my job

For the record, Digital Homicide was caught stealing assets and artwork which Romine admitted to in his interview with Sterling and blamed on being a new developer, the same interview containing a thinly veiled threat of doxing, and we have covered here on MMO Fallout that Digital Homicide has used multiple company names in the past, including one of an established developer.

As is custom here at MMO Fallout, we will be offering regular updates as they become available. I may space out coverage depending on how quickly the case proceeds because access to the documents is not free and can very quickly add up and get expensive depending on how many there are and how long each document is.

38 Studios Lenders Hit With Fraud Charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission is now involving the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation and Wells Fargo Securities, levying fraud charges against both groups in relation to the bankruptcy of former game developer 38 Studios. In its complaint, the SEC is alleging that both groups knew that the $75 million loan that brought 38 Studios to the state would be insufficient to cover their costs and withheld that information. In addition, it is alleged that Wells Fargo had a conflict of interest with 38 Studios that it should have disclosed during the loan period.

“We allege that the RIEDC and Wells Fargo knew that 38 Studios needed an additional $25 million to fund the project yet failed to pass that material information along to bond investors, who were denied a complete financial picture.”
-SEC Enforcement Division Director Andrew Ceresney

The SEC joins the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation alleging fraudulent dealings in the $75 million loan given to 38 Studios for the now-defunct game Project Copernicus. 38 Studios went bankrupt in 2012 after releasing their game Kingdoms of Amalur, leaving state taxpayers on the hook for $115 million in unpaid principal, interest, and fees associated with the loan.

(Source: Providence Journal)

$12.5 Million Deal Reached In 38 Studios Lawsuit

In what is certainly not the final chapter to the long and twisted story of 38 Studios, Curt Schilling, and Kingdoms of Amalur, Rhode Island has announced a $12.5 million settlement with four more defendants from the original lawsuit. To the unfamiliar, 38 Studios headed by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling relocated to Rhode Island on the promise of a $75 million state-backed loan to create their game Kingdoms of Amalur and eventually develop an MMO. Amalur failed to sell and 38 Studios went bankrupt, making the state (ie: its tax payers) liable for paying the rest of the loan.

The state of Rhode Island filed lawsuit against a wide variety of people involved, including Schilling himself, executives, former agencies, and banks involved in the loan. 38 Studios was accused of everything from fraud, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and more. The settlement is supported by both sides, with the state looking to recoup what is left of the defendant’s insurance and the defendants simply seeking to end the trial.

There are still other lawsuits ongoing, including one against Curt Schilling himself.

(Source: SF Gate)

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