Nexon has officialy filed a lawsuit against Ironmace

[tim.]

As of yesterday (April 14), Nexon's lawsuit was made public. Someone shared this earlier, but it didn't seem like anyone noticed, and since there hasn't been any discussion about it i thought i'd start one.

This is a link to the docket, if you bother to make an account you can see some of the more detailed documents, including a full PDF of the claims Nexon is making. This goes further into detail about Nexon's side than the DMCA did. The PDF is hosted on a mirror site for convience, i'll link both the docket and the PDF in a comment below this if you're curious to see what their full case is all about.

Feel free to form your own conclusions and discuss in the chat, but try to stick to what's factually presented as much as possible.

[tim.]

The docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/washington/wawdce/2:2023cv00576/321151

The mirrored PDF: https://www.docdroid.net/m29ULzP/1-pdf

[Snooze]

Fun fact- Nexon's lawsuit isn't a DMCA takedown, as DMCA is strictly sections 512, 1201, and 1202.

Nexons new lawsuit, in the docket you posted, is section 501- a straight up violation of copyright. The pdf(for those who don't want to read it) lists both a misappropriation of trade secrets(DTSA section 1836) and copyright section 501 in the US Code of Law.

"Misappropriation of trade secrets" is vague, however, from my limited understanding, this means that BECAUSE Ironmace was formed from those who had worked on P3- Nexon has a full case, because now they basically took the idea that Nexon had(P3), quit, and made Dark and Darker.

This is *not* DMCA. A DMCA takedown is sent to, as we saw, Steam to remove the copyrighted content.

One might wonder why this is happening?

This is because IM used a public torrenting service to distribute Dark and Darker. This means that now they're tried under both Korean DTSA and Copyright, and every country that they distributed from.

This became a MUCH bigger case, and something properly worth looking at now, which unless you're a lawyer, isn't worth doing on here.

TL;DR:

IM ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up big time.

[Inuakurei]

Ironmace absolutely lose this case according to US law. However it's Korea so I'm not 100% sure what they'll do. They are very pro-worker there, so maybe the court will side with the employees.

[Snooze]

Escrito originalmente por Inuakurei:

Ironmace absolutely lose this case according to US law. However it's Korea so I'm not 100% sure what they'll do. They are very pro-worker there, so maybe the court will side with the employees.

It is no longer in Korea. The docket was filed state-side by Nexon US law team.

[Inuakurei]

Escrito originalmente por Snooze:

Escrito originalmente por Inuakurei:

Ironmace absolutely lose this case according to US law. However it's Korea so I'm not 100% sure what they'll do. They are very pro-worker there, so maybe the court will side with the employees.

It is no longer in Korea. The docket was filed state-side by Nexon US law team.

RIP

[Imako]

They outlined who and when (down to the names, and the months/years.) accessed and moved build files for P3 to Iron Mace, pretty damning.

[Flavalicious]

Escrito originalmente por Snooze:

Fun fact- Nexon's lawsuit isn't a DMCA takedown, as DMCA is strictly sections 512, 1201, and 1202.

Nexons new lawsuit, in the docket you posted, is section 501- a straight up violation of copyright. The pdf(for those who don't want to read it) lists both a misappropriation of trade secrets(DTSA section 1836) and copyright section 501 in the US Code of Law.

"Misappropriation of trade secrets" is vague, however, from my limited understanding, this means that BECAUSE Ironmace was formed from those who had worked on P3- Nexon has a full case, because now they basically took the idea that Nexon had(P3), quit, and made Dark and Darker.

This is *not* DMCA. A DMCA takedown is sent to, as we saw, Steam to remove the copyrighted content.

One might wonder why this is happening?

This is because IM used a public torrenting service to distribute Dark and Darker. This means that now they're tried under both Korean DTSA and Copyright, and every country that they distributed from.

This became a MUCH bigger case, and something properly worth looking at now, which unless you're a lawyer, isn't worth doing on here.

TL;DR:

IM ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up big time.

Alot of details in your post are incorrect, your getting alot of the main details but your going to give some wrong impressions to other folks as well.

DCMA and copyright lawsuits are different things to achieve different ends. DCMA is a request to remove content from a hosting service or platform that the person or company filling the complaint believes is a breach of their ownership. Steam complies because Steam maintains its protection from lawsuits by honouring the requests as per safe harbour rules. The DCMA is more for other companies outside of Ironmace, companies like stores to sell the game, server hosting companies, social media platforms, etc. The copyright lawsuit itself is the action against Ironmace directly.

The lawsuit filled on friday is Nexon officially claiming copyright infringement and requesting a hearing in court to put forward its claims. Ironmace disputes Nexons claims, and thus released the playtest via Torrent distribution because at this point the entire situation is only an accusation, they are not guilty and not innocent and they are free to continue development as they see fit unless a court ordered injuction happens from a judge that demands they cease production. IF Nexon wins in court, then IM will be forced to follow whatever the courts decide. But until that point Ironmace can do, and will do whatever it wants because its disputing the claims. Nexon filling the DCMA and Lawsuit does not mean Ironmace is guilty in the eyes of the law at this moment. There is no "going around or violating copyright" of any kind here until it has its day in court and its been ruled by the jury that took place. The minute Ironmace opted to ignore the C&D they are in a position where either they will win and all will be well, or they will not, in which case they will be in trouble. However you saying they are running the playtest from a torrent download and thats somehow getting them in more trouble for skirting copyright is incorrect. The playtest happening now will probably play almost no roll into the actual hearing in courts, it will almost certainly come down to wether a panel of peers in a jury feel the games are too similar, and weather the switch of employments played a malicious role in the establishment of IM.

Nothing has changed, Nexon made their claims, Ironmace defended to the community and disregarded the C&D and now it goes to court, the same outcome im sure IM expected from the minute they got the first legal warning, to which im sure they spoke with their own lawyers and are acting on advise given.

______

Nothing anyone can do now but wait and see. My 2 cents is IM will be fine if what we've been told is the truth and they arent omitting large chunks of evidence that looks bad. This case isn't too different from what happened to the Battletech devs from HBS. The TLDR of that case in 2018-2019 was a guy co-created an IP in the 80s. Got sued by a company in early 1990s for using some of their designs, lost the case, had to pay a bunch of damages and remove those designs from their game and never use them again. Guy eventually sells that company but in like 2014 forms a new studio and in 2017ish makes a Battletech video game where he re-adds those banned designs, but with some visual changes. The same company sued him again and it went to court for over a year before they won and everything was allowed in the game as planned. So summary.... Guy makes company. Company gets sued and loses for using designs. SAME guy makes another company 10 years later, uses altered versions of those same designs, gets sued by the SAME company and wins. Alot of similarities id say, copyright cases are always a mess like this lol ;)


Case was Hairbraned Schemes versus Harmony Gold if anyone was wondering.

[Grimmz]

i wonder why they pulled the magnet link from twitter if they're not in any trouble.

[Flavalicious]

Escrito originalmente por Grimmz:

i wonder why they pulled the magnet link from twitter if they're not in any trouble.

Because twitter got a dcma takedown request from Nexon. Obviously. Lol

[Mr B.]

Escrito originalmente por Flavalicious:

*Lots

I personally think they are in more trouble.

Iron mace have been making some very stupid/dodgy decisions. First and foremost was the deleting the server, which for the reasons they gave is frankly unlikely. To anyone with a rational mind, this was to cover things.

The next was saying that it's Nexons fault they didn't get caught, even though they knew they were against policy (carrying on using the private server).

Then it was that absolute joke of a fundraiser, with many things which looked to me, outright lies/incompetence (sleeping on the floor in the office for example). Yes, it was alleged to be the actions of one staff member, but to all eyes that's under remit of Iron mace.

Some of the things in that PDF look rather damning.

To reiterate, I'm not on anyones side.

[FlirtatiousHobo]

Escrito originalmente por Inuakurei:

Ironmace absolutely lose this case according to US law. However it's Korea so I'm not 100% sure what they'll do. They are very pro-worker there, so maybe the court will side with the employees.

Not sure where you got the USA law part because favor would definitely lean towards Ironmace in the US. Take the Blizzard DOTA lawsuit for example. When it comes to online/gaming, it's hard to convince a court they took trade secrets when the "secrets" is basically common DND concepts.

[Nightbjorn]

Escrito originalmente por Inuakurei:

Ironmace absolutely lose this case according to US law. However it's Korea so I'm not 100% sure what they'll do. They are very pro-worker there, so maybe the court will side with the employees.

Negative, Ironmace would absolute win this case, BECAUSE of US Law. You cannot copy right concepts, themes, art styles, genres, etc. All of the content was heavily influenced by said project, dungeons and dragons, and the same artist worked on both. It's actually a really simple lawsuit to defend. Nexon is just trying to financially starve/stonewall Ironmace.

[tim.]

Please read the pdf if you're going to argue points. A lot of this is addressed within it.

[FlirtatiousHobo]

I could make a lawsuit about anything; however, I'd still have to provide evidence in the court preceeding to prove its true. A lot of what is on the lawsuit definitely seems like reaching. Of course, they want to win so their going to make it seem as convincing as possible

[Snooze]

Escrito originalmente por Bluedude101:

I could make a lawsuit about anything; however, I'd still have to provide evidence in the court preceeding to prove its true. A lot of what is on the lawsuit definitely seems like reaching. Of course, they want to win so their going to make it seem as convincing as possible

Its not.

The fact that the two main heads of Dark and Darker were also the main heads of P3, and now they're making a game that functions incredibly similar is not reaching.

That's the crux of 'stealing trade secrets'