PlayStation Lost Case to Ban Software That Allowed Cheating in Racing Game
The EU court stated that the add-on that allowed infinite boosts in MotorStorm didn't breach the European copyright law.
Sony
PlayStation has lost a legal battle with Datel, a company that has been selling software allowing boosts in a racing game. According to the ruling of the European Court of Justice, the software doesn't breach European copyright law.
The disputable software allows players to let gamers get infinite boosts in a racing game MotorStorm, and control the console using a motion sensor. Datel's software doesn't alter source code, merely changing variables running in the working memory.
The case was heard in the Court of Justice, the highest judicial authority in the European Union. The question was whether the software infringed 2009 EU laws on game copyright. Sony pointed out that Datel's software "latches on ... like a parasite" to the PlayStation game.
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Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said that Datel's actions didn't breach the law: "The author of a detective novel cannot prevent the reader from skipping to the end of the novel to find out who the killer is, even if that would spoil the pleasure of reading and ruin the author’s efforts to maintain suspense."
Gaming activist Ross Scott supported this point of view and compared the software's functions to adding highlights to a book or changing the wheels on your car and called letting users cheat on a one-player game a "victimless crime."
The case was settled in favor of Datel. The court stated that given the fact that only variables are transferred temporarily to working memory, it doesn't breach the named law: "The Directive on the legal protection of computer programs does not allow the holder of that protection to prohibit the marketing by a third party of software which merely changes variables transferred temporarily." The judges elaborate in a statement: "The directive protects only the intellectual creation as it is reflected in the text of the computer program’s source code and object code."
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