PlayStation has lost a lawsuit against Datel, a prominent company behind video game cheats. The legal battle has been ongoing for over a decade between Sony and the cheats company. Back in 2009, Datel was hit with a lawsuit by Sony for selling cheats to the PSP game MotorStorm Arctic Edge. The cheat enabled players to use unlimited boosts/turbo by bypassing restrictions in the game.
The European Court of Justice published its ruling yesterday siding with Datel. In the initial lawsuit, Sony accused Datel of modifying the software on the PSP game, stating that the cheat “latches on like a parasite” to the software. In reality, though, Datel’s cheats didn’t actually modify any of the original software. Instead, Datel fiddled with coding stored within PSP’s memory. TorrentFreak offers a deeper explanation for this process but it’s important as this was the basis for Sony losing the lawsuit.
It’s reasonable for Sony, or any major gaming company, to impose hefty restrictions on the use of cheats in its games. This especially stings for the PSP, which was, at the time, one of the most jailbroken consoles in Sony’s history. Despite having some solid ground to stand on, the European Court of Justice ultimately ruled in Datel’s favour as the nature of the cheats being used for MotorStorm Arctic Edge didn’t actually tamper with the software.
“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,” said Advocate General Maciej Szpunar.
Datel and Sony have yet to comment on the ruling, though it’s probably best for Sony to keep its head down for this one. It’s not often that cheat distributors are able to walk away victorious from lawsuits like this.
Source: PlayStation LifeStyle
