Tecmo gives up the fight to stop 1337 hackers creating nude game characters
A federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit filed by Tecmo against NinjaHacker.net, a fan site where users who had reverse-engineered the company's XBox titles shared custom skins that changed the appearance of characters. In the most (in)famous example, the scantily-clad women of its Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball game were rendered completely nude. NinjaHacker's webmaster, Mike Greiling, and Will Glynn, who provided Greiling with hosting services, were the main defendants and have reportedly settled with Tecmo. The suit, which also named up to 100 anonymous users of the site, charged that the hacks violated U.S. trademark and copyright laws, federal and state prohibitions on unfair competition, and the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The user-created skins were installed voluntarily and on consoles that had been modified to allow custom code to run, and the suit, which was announced in February, did not accuse any of the defendants of pirating the games. The question of whether or not consumers have the right to modify video games they have legally purchased was not addressed by Tecmo or the judge presiding over the case.
