GTA V ‘Cheat’ Developer Settles Copyright Infringement Case

[Ulquiorra]

Rockstar Games' parent company Take-Two Interactive has 'won' a consent judgment against the developer of the GTA V cheat "Infamous". A New York federal court signed off on the judgment in which defendant Erik Cameron admits copyright infringement and agrees to pay an undisclosed settlement amount.

In recent years, there has been a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits against alleged cheaters or cheat makers.

Two of the driving forces behind these cases are GTA V developer Rockstar Games and its parent company Take-Two Interactive.

In Australia, the companies filed a complaint last September, targeting several people believed to be linked to the popular ‘Infamous’ cheat.

A few months earlier, Take-Two launched a lawsuit against two men in the United States, accusing both of copyright infringement and breach of contract, among other things. They too were linked to the ‘Infamous’ cheat. 

The first defendant, Christopher Pei, admitted his wrongdoing and swiftly settled the case last summer. This week, his co-defendant, Erik Cameron followed suit. 

In a signed consent judgment, Cameron admits that he worked on the ‘Infamous’ cheat with a group of people, including Pei and unnamed persons from Europe and Australia. 

The legal paperwork, filed last week, also makes it clear that this constituted copyright infringement as well as a breach of the user agreement. As a result, GTA V’s Take-Two suffered damage, while the cheat developer reaped profits.

“Mr. Cameron’s violations of the Copyright Act and New York law have caused, and continue to cause, Take-Two great and irreparable injury that cannot be fully compensated or measured in money,” the judgment reads.

While the cheat developer takes the blame, it is unclear at what cost. The judgment merely mentions that there’s a “confidential settlement for an undisclosed amount of money.”

The judgment also comes with a permanent injunction which prohibits Cameron from developing or promoting any software that alters Take-Two’s software. All Infamous copies or any similar cheat tools that remain in his possession, must be destroyed. 

Although the scale of the settlement remains unknown, it is likely less than the $150,000 a fellow GTA V cheat developer was ordered to pay in a default judgment last month.

The order brings an end to these two US cases that were related to the ‘Infamous’ cheat. The Australian case against another alleged developer of the same software remains ongoing.