No one escapes the pirates in the world of digital entertainment. Businesses quietly seethe as the stealthy ones break open the profit piñata full of goodies for all the gameplayers to pick from. Always one step ahead, maybe even two or three, no one escapes the pirates. But Ubisoft is trying their best to prevent the peglegs from storming the deck of their Assassin's Creed flagship.
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Ubisoft sues Optical Experts Manufacturing of Charlotte, North Carolina, the company they contracted reproduce copies of the game disc, for enabling the early leak of the PC version of Assassin's Creed. Specifically, Ubisoft sues OEM for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and negligence asking for damages and paid-for legal fees related to each complaint. For the last two, Ubisoft is asking for $10 million EACH for the infractions.
Set for its PC debut in April, Assassin's Creed was leaked onto the internet six weeks earlier in February ripe for the exploitation of the pirates. Ubisoft sues OEM over "an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence" considering that the disc-maker lapsed in preventing an employee from taking a gamedisc home early and then posting the file online.
Ubisoft alleges that OEM agreed to follow security protocols designed to prevent such leaks but did not follow through. The game publisher alleges that the discmaker admitted lapsing on their security agreement which includes preventing any copies of the game from leaving OEM's premises. Tracking down the source of the early leak online, Ubisoft discovered that it was within the home of an OEM employee. A OEM-made pirated Assassin's Creed disc was later found at the employee's home even if lawsuit doesn't specify time of discovery.
Sales tracker, The NPD Group, says that Assassin's Creed on the PC sold over 40,000 from U.S. retailers in June but Ubisoft says that the leaked downloads have totalled over 700,000 (about a 1650% difference) costing them millions of dollars. And the publisher is not simply bent out of shape due to lost sales. They also say that their reputation was damaged by the leak. They programmed a fail-safe bug (which was not included in final retail version) designed to prevent pirating by crashing the game halfway through but this buggy pirate-blocking version and the actual finished version got confused as the same game with customers's word of mouth. This in Ubisoft's view caused their reputation "irreparable harm."
Another day, another lawsuit. Once again it's time to see who's rights are right in the dreaded courtroom.
Thanks to Gamespot.com.
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