Earth 2160 - Anti-piracy Actions

Anti-piracy Actions

In 2005 Zuxxez Entertainment hired law firm Schutt-Waetke to charge more than 18,000 German filesharers for copyright violation. Fines between 150 to 650 Euros were levied. The producer Dirk Hassinger had noticed there were far more players on the online game server than registered buyers (all the game's copy protections systems had been hacked and a small program was automatically generating serial numbers), leading him to start monitoring the filesharing networks for illegal shares. The Swiss firm Logistep offered him a package that would gather data valid for legal actions and automatically generate the charges ready for digital submission to the court in Karlsruhe. Two weeks later Hassinger's lawyer submitted one CDROM containing 13,700 charges to the court, each one also printed as a courtesy. By post each defendant received an offer: pay 50 Euros now and the case is dropped. Hassinger's lawyers also sent demands that each downloader sign an undertaking to never again share copyrighted software, plus an invoice for 200 to 500 Euros.