EO Goes to Court! (Not)

Recently, there have been talks about Vult-r possibly filing a lawsuit against a kid for hacking his game. And there are other sources that talk about a copyright violation regarding another kid who made a game under the EO trademark (well, I don't think Vult trademarked EO... well, the kid made his game under the EO name). Is there any copyright infringements or lawsuits here? Possibly. Can Vult-r do anything about it? Not possibly. 

Where do I start? Hmm, we'll start with Vult-r vs. Calan (alleged hacker). Can Vult-r file a lawsuit? No. There ya go! Over and done with xD! Just kidding, I'll go over it in more detail. 

 The reasons why Vult can't sue the hacker? There are lots. Jurisdiction issues. First off, Calan probably doesn't live anywhere near Vult-r. And Netherlands jurisdiction only applies to the Netherlands. If Vult did want to sue, he'd have to locate Calan (which means air travel - very expensive nowadays), and file a lawsuit in the city/state where Calan lives in, that city's jurisdiction. Because what's legal here may not be legal there, or the consequence may differ, depending on the state. Also, it costs money to file a lawsuit. Does Vult have enough money to file a lawsuit in another country? Can he pay the court fees? You also have to think about Calan's infringement. He hacks, but he hacks on a free game. It costs nothing to play. There's no money changing hands here. 

What about the kid who made his own game under the EO name? If he truly did get permission from Vult-r, then there's no copyright infringement. But if the kid was smart, he would get the permission in writing, signed by Vult-r. Because "It's not what you know, it's what you can prove" (courtesy of the movie, Training Day xD). If he doesn't have it, Vult can, at anytime, just come right back and bite Cascade in the ass for copyright infringement. That part is illegal. But like what I said in the previous paragraph, it wouldn't be in Vult's best interest to act on it, except seize the EOR server and ban the creator. In essence, Cascade is involved in "piracy", and that's looked down upon by the FBI and other agencies. Also, again, there's no money exchange. So it would be all this legal work for no pay.

Endless Online is not trademarked, I don't think. If it is, it should be displayed as either an (R) symbol, or TM (for Trademark), after Endless Online. But it's not. So there's no possiblity of trademark violation with the EO name at this time. You just can't take any contents in EO, like the same weapons and weapon name, city names, whatever. Doing so may be a copyright infringement. But there's not enough resources for Vult to act on any infrigement. He just doesn't make enough money to pursue any legal activities regarding EO. 

I have some ideas of what Vult should do, but that's for another post. In short, Vult can't legally do anything about Calan, he won't do anything with Cascade, but he can (and should) ban their accounts for TOS violation. 

That's it. Hope I didn't forget anything. 

*Quick Update* - About the copyright thing. I did a little research, and it seems there could be criminal charges filed against the defendant... if there's any retail value involved. For example, if there's a retail value of more than $2,500, it's possible you can be imprisoned for up to 5 years, with up to a $250,000 fine. But that's for the US, and that's if there's any value in the copyrighted works. Far as EO's concerned, the case wouldn't make it to the circuit court... it most likely wouldn't make it past the clerk of court's office.