Christopher Anderson has been found guilty by Australian courts of copyright infringement against Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar on their GTA 5 game. The case actually revolves around the Infamous cheat software, so Anderson is the developer. The latter must now pay €81,000 in damages to the studio.
Like all online games, GTA 5, or rather its derivative GTA Online, has to deal with a horde of cheaters spoiling the experience of other players. Rockstar has well developed anti-cheat solutions, but these are not always effective against pirated software, some of which is capable of going unnoticed. This last point is part of what has made Infamous so popular with cheaters.
In 2018, the software grew so big that Rockstar wanted to address the root cause. After searching, the studio discovers that its creators all reside in Australia and therefore decides to file a complaint in the country. Then begins a new investigation by the local authorities, searching the houses of the accused in search of proof of their involvement. One name stands out: that of Christopher Anderson.
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€81,000 for developing cheat software on GTA 5
Christopher Anderson sees confiscating many devices from his home, including laptops, his iPad or his iPhone. The defendant also loses access to his PayPal account, which was used to receive payments for his cheat software. After examining the case, the justice considers that Anderson is guilty of copyright infringement towards Take Two.
Indeed, the developer used several pieces of code from GTA 5 to develop its software, in addition to allowing its users to reproduce certain contents of the game without authorization. A year later, Take-Two and Christopher Anderson agree on a price to pay: 130,000 Australian dollars in damages, or just over €81,000. The developer is doing relatively well: as the case of the GTA 6 hack showed us, Take-Two takes copyright infringement cases very seriously.