Last week Blizzard filed suit in the Los Angeles US District Court against three programmers accused of creating and selling hacks for StarCraft II.
Blizzard kicked off October by suspending or banning around 5,000 gamers from its just-released sci-fi RTS StarCraft II for using hacks, thus violating Blizzard's end-user license agreement. Now the developer is going after "Permaphrost," "Cranix," and "Linuxawesome" for allegedly developing and selling tools for StarCraft II hacks. According to the lawsuit, the three programmers have violated copyright law, Battle.net terms of use, and the end-user license agreement.
"Just days after the release of StarCraft II, Defendants already had developed, marketed, and distributed to the public a variety of hacks and cheats designed to modify (and in fact destroy) the StarCraft II online game experience," the company claims in the lawsuit. "In fact, on the very day that StarCraft II was released, representatives of the hacks Web site advised members of the public that 'our staff is already planning new releases for this game.'"
The three defendants now face multiple accounts of copyright infringement. Blizzard is seeking damages and disgorgement of any profits made by the sale of the StarCraft II hacks. The company also alleges that the programmers are inducing players to infringe on Blizzard's copyright by loading StarCraft II copyrighted content into the system RAM and creating derivative works.
"The harm to Blizzard from Defendants' conduct is immediate, massive and irreparable," the lawsuit claims. "By distributing the Hacks to the public, Defendants cause serious harm to the value of StarCraft II. Among other things, Defendants irreparably harm the ability of Blizzard's legitimate customers (i.e. those who purchase and use unmodified games) to enjoy and participate in the competitive online experience. That, in turn, causes users to grow dissatisfied with the game, lose interest in the game, and communicate that dissatisfaction, thereby resulting in lost sales of the game or 'add-on' packs and expansions thereto."
According to the suit, Permaphrost and Cranix reside in Canada whereas Linuxawesome resides in Peru. The suit demands that the hack programs be pulled from hosts located anywhere within the courts jurisdiction. The suit also lists other alleged hackers including "Wiggley," "Zynastor," and "Dark Mage."
When asked for a statement regarding the lawsuit, we received the following response: "Blizzard Entertainment does not comment on pending litigation."
