PlayStation lost the case against DatalA famous producer of video game cheats. Also, the conflict lasted for more than ten years Home of Action Replay Received favorable judgment from European Court of JusticeAs the judgment released yesterday read.
Third-party cheats and add-ons for PlayStation consoles do not necessarily violate European Union law. The lawsuit stems from Datal selling cheats for the 2009 PSP game MotorStorm: Arctic Edge (which was released on the PS2). The cheats in question allowed players to bypass the game-imposed restrictions and use unlimited boost/turbo.
Daedal won
So Sony sued, claiming that its copyright had been infringed and that the cheat software was “parasitically attached”. In fact, Datel does not change the cheat softwareBut as TorrentFreak explained in 2023, it was played with code stored in the PSP's memory.
Sony won an initial positive ruling, but Datel appealed, and the ruling was subsequently overturned because the trick in question executed “parallel instructions on variables stored in main memory.” Dissatisfied with the decision, Sony went to the European Court of Justice, which ultimately ruled in favor of Datal.
Having said that, Sony can legally ban players for using cheats both offline and online. This ruling applies only to those who make tricks. Sony's problem is that Datel made its changes without touching the software, in full compliance with European copyright laws.
Things change with multiplayer-only gamesHowever, cheaters ruin the experience of legitimate gamblers. In this case, a lawyer likened players using Boost Offline to someone picking up a book and skipping pages.
“The author of a detective novel cannot prevent the reader from finding out who the killer is, although this can spoil the pleasure of reading and frustrate the author's efforts to maintain suspense,” explained lawyer Maciej Szpunar.
Neither Sony nor Datal have commented on the ruling.
