The developer of Fortnite, Epic Games, has filed a lawsuit against a YouTuber and his partner for allegedly violating copyright provisions. It involves cheating or magical powers – both sides see it a bit differently.
This YouTuber is suing Epic Games:
- Brandon Lucas (22), also known as Golden Modz. He has 1.7 million subscribers on YouTube – so he is a relatively big fish
- and Colton Conter (“Excentric”), his partner – he appears more often in these videos
These are magical powers, not cheats
What does Golden Modz do? As TorrentFreak knows, Golden Modz is known for showcasing cheats for Fortnite and GTA 5, which he markets as “magical powers” and then sells on his own websites.
According to Torrentfreak, he says things like: “At the end of the stream, I will be giving away three months full of magical powers for Fortnite. Definitely no cheats – wink, wink – These are magical powers, okay?”
This is what Epic Games accuses the two of: Lucas is accused of distributing cheats via YouTube and selling them through his websites goldengodz.com and gtagods.com. He regularly promotes these sites in his videos. The co-defendant Conter is said to have appeared in the videos.
Lucas operates these sites and sells cheats and accounts for his personal gain. He shows videos of people using these cheats for the same reasons. His revenues are unlawfully acquired and occur at the expense of Epic Games and the community.
Cheating to “win” – trolling to earn money
Epic says the defendants created these cheats by injecting code into the game “Fortnite”. The product is copyright protected.
In videos, the defendants sometimes played in duos or squads and joked about the magical powers with which they can kill dozens of opponents in Fortnite and “win” the game. Epic refers to this as “trolling”.
Through their behavior, they violated the “Digital Millennium Copyright Act”, breached the contract, and unlawfully interfered with Epic Games’ business.
The lawsuit can be seen here (via Torrentfreak). The lawsuit was filed in North Carolina.
YouTuber expected to be sued, made video about it
How did the lawsuit come about? Before the lawsuit, Lucas received 9 strikes from Epic Games on his YouTube videos.
The videos are blocked after a strike. However, one can choose to contest these strikes.
Lucas declared his innocence in a video from September 22nd, titled “I am getting sued by Fortnite …” (via YouTube)
In the video, Lucas says he doesn’t see how his behavior could cause trouble when others do the same: They also released leaks and hacks. He feels discriminated against by Epic Games. He is just a boy making YouTube videos. A lot of people enjoy them.
Therefore, he filed an appeal against the 9 strikes that Epic Games raised against his videos.
In the video, Lucas said he could probably be sued for contesting the strikes. But he cannot understand this, since so many others are also uploading such content. Lucas also makes arrangements in the video for what would happen if they shut down his channel.
This is how he reacts to the lawsuit: But apparently he was still surprised by the actual lawsuit.
In response to the actual lawsuit, Lucas first alerted Keemstar, the well-known “Drama” king of YouTube. He said on Twitter that anyone wanting to publish this story should contact him.
This is what it’s about: The process of a copyright strike on YouTube works as follows:
- The person who sees their rights violated issues a strike. They report the video to YouTube. Subsequently, the video is initially blocked
- The “recipient” of the strike has the option to accept it or contest it
- If he contests, the plaintiff can choose to accept that or can assert his alleged claim in court and sue
If one contests strikes on YouTube, there is indeed a real chance of being sued.
This is what Epic Games demands:
- The defendants should hand over their profits
- They should pay Epic Games compensation, as well as cover legal and court costs
- And they should be permanently prevented from repeating such behavior
This is what Epic aims to achieve with the lawsuit: Epic is probably less concerned with filling its own pockets with damages, but more about creating a deterrent effect and setting an example. Similar lawsuits have arisen before – the first ones as early as 2017. In similar cases, Epic Games has reached out-of-court settlements with the defendants.
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We have already followed a particularly obscure case here:
