Opening a major new front in the entertainment software industry’s battle against piracy, leading video game companies today filed a lawsuit to block the trafficking and sale of software that cracks the copy protection systems used by game makers to protect their titles from illegal copying, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced today.
Three ESA members, Atari, Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., and Vivendi Universal Games, Inc., filed the lawsuit against 321 Studios in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, contending that 321 Studios’ “Games X Copy” software is illegal because it violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by circumventing the technological protection measures used by entertainment software publishers to prevent game piracy.
“Masquerading as a consumer friendly tool, 321 Studios’ software is, in truth, really nothing more than a device to facilitate the illegal copying of games,” said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, the trade association that represents U.S. computer and video game publishers. “Federal law makes it clear that it is illegal to manufacture, distribute, or sell devices or programs that circumvent technological protection measures built into video games. That’s exactly what 321 Studios’ Games X Copy does, and we fully expect the court to grant our request to ban this product.”
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