Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

So, it is possible that the manufacturers are infringing in some way, shape, or form, but collecting a judgment on it or enforcing an injunction against a Chinese manufacturer or marketplace is not going to go anywhere.

With software cheats, the lawsuits are usually over some kind of DMCA copyright protection circumvention, tortious interference, and the various generic unfair competition claims. For controller stuff and in certain software claims there might also be some patent issues there to raise in addition to those.

Generally, the guys operating out of China etc. are not going to care that much because only their US-based accounts are going to be at the mercy of US courts. It is not even that straightforward to enforce US judgements in EU countries for various reasons (e.g. in Germany, to enforce the judgment, Germany must have close analogue of the underlying claim under its own law, and the German courts do not construe this liberally).

I disagree that this is not a big problem. The cheat situation in online gaming probably worse now than it has ever been because the cheat providers have really succeeded in making them easy to use and access for the average user. IMO the companies brought it on themselves to some extent by breaking up the old decentralized server model, which was harder to use, but also was able to take advantage of massive numbers of volunteer moderators to regulate cheating and other bad behavior.



>I disagree that this is not a big problem. The cheat situation in online gaming probably worse now than it has ever been

in PC gaming, sure. for software cheats, sure. but I'm not talking about either of those things. I'm talking about modded console controllers, which is the focus of this thread

also, it's not really true that these sellers are outside of the range of copyright laws. while the specific sellers may well be, aliexpress, temu, wish, etc as platforms are all very much exposed to Western courts




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: