"Grand Theft Auto V" Cheaters Have Homes Searched, Assets Frozen

Megalith

Megalith

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Raided for being a cheater? It could happen, at least in Australia: a court down under had granted permission for a search and seizure on those responsible for “Infamous,” cheating software for GTA V. In addition to a complete building and vehicle search, the order also resulted in the defendants’ money and cryptocurrency accounts being frozen.

It is likely that Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive will try to obtain copyright infringement related damages, and with the freezing order they can make sure that the money isn’t spent beforehand. The orders in question were initially not disclosed, but that restriction has now been lifted. From the information we have available the searches were carried out late last month.
 
Did Rockstar/TTI lose enough revenue from this that footing the bill for the cost to dispatch government/law enforcement agents to seize assets and freeze accounts would more than pay for said bill?

Or will the Australian taxpayers bear the burden of this cost while Rockstar/TTI gets a (nicer) pay day?
 
I don't get the complaints about cheats/hacks. The are fully optional, if you don't like them, don't use them. /s

Edit: put in "/hacks"
 
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emphy said:
I don't get the complaints about cheats. The are fully optional, if you don't like them, don't use them. /s
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Re-read using hackers instead of cheaters. Title is incorrect.

Also they were profiting by selling the hacks.

Honestly i think this went a little far, it wasnt a direct attack on rockstar as a company but they do deserve to be hit hard.
 
Good, now strip them naked, tar and feather them, then prostrate them in front of a live studio audience. That studio audience gets the joy of hooking the filthy cheaters sensitive bits to a fully charged car battery with the rustiest most jagged jumper cables (that still function) available.
 
This is a civil matter. The idea that the criminal justice system is being used to police the use of a product in a sealed ecosystem regulated by that corporation is insulting.

This is purely because politicians are for sale and tax payer money is much easier for Rockstar to spend than their own. These dirt bags should be stapled to the wall for sure, but not with tax dollars, let Rockstar spend the fucking money to ensure the quality and enjoyment of their service.
 
Makers / sellers or even users of cheats should be met with capitol punishment, i have yet to play a game and not have it ruined for me by cheaters,,,,, hell i was even banned from a game myself though a cheat have never been on my computer.
And i dont like when games leave it to a #2 - 3 part to ensure no cheating go on.
But yes the game studios should clean their own act, and we users should be better to call them out when they turn our game into what i would dare call abandon-ware pretty fast.
 
DejaWiz said:
Did Rockstar/TTI lose enough revenue from this that footing the bill for the cost to dispatch government/law enforcement agents to seize assets and freeze accounts would more than pay for said bill?

Or will the Australian taxpayers bear the burden of this cost while Rockstar/TTI gets a (nicer) pay day?
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Well when the fire department puts out a fire of a house that's on the other side of the city, I help foot the bill for that even though in no way is that helping me out. Just kind of like how all law enforcement works.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Well when the fire department puts out a fire of a house that's on the other side of the city, I help foot the bill for that even though in no way is that helping me out. Just kind of like how all law enforcement works.
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The difference is civil protection vs corporate business dealings. Instead of filing a cease and desist with a suit for monetary damages against the perpetrators and letting the courts deal with it by means of paying those legal fees (which should include the dispatch/use of law enforcement for this special private-interest purpose), the taxpayers have to foot the bill?
 
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bill_d said:
a game that promotes murder and car theft upset about cheating :ROFLMAO:
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It's all about that money. If you cheat your way to a fortune in the game, then how can they sell you shark cards? Since they can show at least some evidence that they may have been harmed financially, I don't see much issue with it. Though, I do see it as a mostly civil matter. Though, even in civil matters, you can still end up being forced into complying with a search order.
 
And all of this is why I never keep my bitcoin shit in the same place that I make and sell all my cheats.

If folk were using BT to buy the cheats, the second that new BT came into my account, it would of been transferred about ten times to other accounts, making it harder for anyone to target the hacker/crackers cash.

If they paid with credit cards or debit cards into his bank account, then he is a dumb shit.
 
DejaWiz said:
The difference is civil protection vs corporate business dealings. Instead of filing a cease and desist with a suit for monetary damages against the perpetrators and letting the courts deal with it by means of paying those legal fees (which should include the dispatch/use of law enforcement for this special private-interest purpose), the taxpayers have to foot the bill?
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Not really any difference IMO, corporations pay taxes and get the benefits of a police force as well. If someone steals your car, and you know who stole it, are you expected to go through civil lawsuits against said person to try and get it back? Or can you go the criminal route. If you sue someone in civil court, it is possible for the courts to freeze the assets of said individual (depending upon the circumstances). Now I'm not saying it's 100% right for big companies to end up using the police as their own ... police, but it's really on the judge for allowing this and I don't blame Rockstar one bit.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Not really any difference IMO, corporations pay taxes and get the benefits of a police force as well. If someone steals your car, and you know who stole it, are you expected to go through civil lawsuits against said person to try and get it back? Or can you go the criminal route. If you sue someone in civil court, it is possible for the courts to freeze the assets of said individual (depending upon the circumstances). Now I'm not saying it's 100% right for big companies to end up using the police as their own ... police, but it's really on the judge for allowing this and I don't blame Rockstar one bit.
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That's a fair point. They do pay taxes.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
This is a civil matter. The idea that the criminal justice system is being used to police the use of a product in a sealed ecosystem regulated by that corporation is insulting.

This is purely because politicians are for sale and tax payer money is much easier for Rockstar to spend than their own. These dirt bags should be stapled to the wall for sure, but not with tax dollars, let Rockstar spend the fucking money to ensure the quality and enjoyment of their service.
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remember when the department of homeland security was dispatched to an AMC theater because of google glass?

pepperidge farm remembers.
 
emphy said:
I don't get the complaints about cheats/hacks. The are fully optional, if you don't like them, don't use them. /s

Edit: put in "/hacks"
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As long as they're for a single player game, that's right. But I assume these guys were selling cheats for gta online. Besides selling anything is a big no-no even for offline games.
 
cheaters that affect others enjoyment e.g. multiplayer, okay.

but single player trainers..... i don't think the later should get punished ;_: cauz why? the only ones enjoyment is ruined is the the player who opts to cheat themselves out of fun. but it doesn't affect anyone else.

so not sure that this law distinguishes between the types of cheaters o-O; or does it?
 
Rockstar chose to be cheap by using a peer-to-peer architecture rather than a proper client-server architecture. That is why it is so easy for people to cheat in GTA V. It is entirely their own doing that it is so prevalant.
 
Does this get me arrested?
maxresdefault.jpg
 
Twisted Kidney said:
This is a civil matter. The idea that the criminal justice system is being used to police the use of a product in a sealed ecosystem regulated by that corporation is insulting.

This is purely because politicians are for sale and tax payer money is much easier for Rockstar to spend than their own. These dirt bags should be stapled to the wall for sure, but not with tax dollars, let Rockstar spend the fucking money to ensure the quality and enjoyment of their service.
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Except it's not because they violated several criminal laws. Even if you hate the developer/publisher, at the very minimum you can bet your ass these guys weren't reporting all their income from selling hacks. So just pretend like they're drug dealers who weren't paying their taxes. Those kinds of people get raided all the time.
 
Seventyfive said:
Except it's not because they violated several criminal laws. Even if you hate the developer/publisher, at the very minimum you can bet your ass these guys weren't reporting all their income from selling hacks. So just pretend like they're drug dealers who weren't paying their taxes. Those kinds of people get raided all the time.
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Hey, we should just treat this the same as mass murder, right? They MIGHT have committed a crime tangentially resulting from making a company angry, millions of dollars in tax payer money should be used to make sure the world knows that Rockstar is the boss. How about no, just, no. Tax evasion is a completely separate issue to eroding the quality of a company's product.

There is absolutely no mention of taxes in any of the court documents, justifying huge police reaction and expensive judicial activities because a crime might have happened? Really?

On top of that, most countries don't have a paramilitary tax department.
 
Nobody is litigating single player game cheats. At least nobody who offers those things freely

Companies lose significant money and/or potential money by being targeted by cheaters and being unable to stop them. Since banning them from the game or asking them to stop didn't work, the law should be brought in.

This isn't the case of a mod of some abandonware game that the IP Holder is kicking down. These are cheaters who are making money off of selfishly ruining the game for others playing it. I have no sympathy for whatever plight they find themselves in. I dont care if the punishment isn't balanced relatively to other crimes, that issue exists all over the place.

And I dont think game companies are utilizing law enforcement in lieu of better coding to combat cheating either. There's only so much you can do on hardware that you dont control and lock down. There will always be some way to cheat. All you can do is try and raise the bar of difficulty so that it's too much of a hassle for most people to cheat. No amount of better coding is going to stop it. We can only settle for there being only an extremely small fraction of society able to figure out how to cheat and that those people can't lower that barrier so that the less savvy can do the same.
 
DejaWiz said:
Did Rockstar/TTI lose enough revenue from this that footing the bill for the cost to dispatch government/law enforcement agents to seize assets and freeze accounts would more than pay for said bill?

Or will the Australian taxpayers bear the burden of this cost while Rockstar/TTI gets a (nicer) pay day?
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If you sell cheating software that illegally piggybacks on another company's product, then it's not about the damages Rockstar suffered, it's about what the thieves made off other people's work and investment and risk.

Take a different approach in the thinking. You make a new game, a very popular new game. I take your game and just rehash the graphics and the maps a little and publish it and make a good bit of money because I also added game options that allow players to "cheat". Everyone can cheat in my game, but I stole your game to make my game. So tell me what's the difference?
 
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emphy said:
I don't get the complaints about cheats/hacks. The are fully optional, if you don't like them, don't use them. /s

Edit: put in "/hacks"
Click to expand...


In a single player game I agree. In an online multiplayer game it sorta fucks shit up for the rest of the players/customers.
 
lcpiper said:
If you sell cheating software that illegally piggybacks on another company's product, then it's not about the damages Rockstar suffered, it's about what the thieves made off other people's work and investment and risk.

Take a different approach in the thinking. You make a new game, a very popular new game. I take your game and just rehash the graphics and the maps a little and publish it and make a good bit of money because I also added game options that all players to "cheat". Everyone can cheat in my game, but I stole your game to make my game. So tell me what's the difference?
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Super Mario 2? :p Sorry couldnt help it.
 
lcpiper said:
If you sell cheating software that illegally piggybacks on another company's product, then it's not about the damages Rockstar suffered, it's about what the thieves made off other people's work and investment and risk.

Take a different approach in the thinking. You make a new game, a very popular new game. I take your game and just rehash the graphics and the maps a little and publish it and make a good bit of money because I also added game options that all players to "cheat". Everyone can cheat in my game, but I stole your game to make my game. So tell me what's the difference?
Click to expand...

This was already put to rest with my last comment about it. Thanks for your perspective, though.
 
DejaWiz said:
The difference is civil protection vs corporate business dealings. Instead of filing a cease and desist with a suit for monetary damages against the perpetrators and letting the courts deal with it by means of paying those legal fees (which should include the dispatch/use of law enforcement for this special private-interest purpose), the taxpayers have to foot the bill?
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I suspect this is what you call "putting something to rest".

Write a bad check and get caught at the teller, you'll be seeing a cop.

Use a CC fraudulently, you'll be seeing a cop.

Shoplifting ....cop.

It's not new, it's old as the sun. Started even before Rome had their first Caesar.

How was Rockstar going to wrangle a search of a non-corporate entity? Someone's home? I am pretty damned sure that it will take law enforcement, and in this case, probably a special division of Australia's version of the FBI, to conduct the search, and seize evidence.

You thought they could just send a letter from their lawyer?


EDITED: DejaWiz, I must apologize for my tone in this reply to you. I just reread the last several posts and I sound combative in this one, and you don't deserve it. I will not change the post, I let it sit as is, maybe I'll learn something from it and from any reply of your own in response.

The beatings may now commence ;)
 
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lcpiper said:
I suspect this is what you call "putting something to rest".

Write a bad check and get caught at the teller, you'll be seeing a cop.

Use a CC fraudulently, you'll be seeing a cop.

Shoplifting ....cop.

It's not new, it's old as the sun. Started even before Rome had their first Caesar.

How was Rockstar going to wrangle a search of a non-corporate entity? Someone's home? I am pretty damned sure that it will take law enforcement, and in this case, probably a special division of Australia's version of the FBI, to conduct the search, and seize evidence.

You thought they could just send a letter from their lawyer?


EDITED: DejaWiz, I must apologize for my tone in this reply to you. I just reread the last several posts and I sound combative in this one, and you don't deserve it. I will not change the post, I let it sit as is, maybe I'll learn something from it and from any reply of your own in response.

The beatings may now commence ;)
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No...this was putting it to rest:

https://hardforum.com/threads/grand...arched-assets-frozen.1970124/#post-1043896062
 
I have no dog in this fight. I don't own GTAV, nor do I have any interest in playing it, but I love hearing stories about cheaters getting their just desserts.
 
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