Mother of 14-year-old sued by Fortnite developer claims son is 'scapegoat' - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=Arc Nova;52927373]you don't think this lawsuit will be carried with him throughout his life? also "His life won't be ruined, just his parents" yeah you really think it will just impact his parents and not him? He depends on his parents, he's 14. Anything that happens to them financially will impact him as well.[/QUOTE] That doesn't mean it'll ruin the literal rest of his life, and there's a very large list of reasons why you're just pulling appeal to emotion here. Will it ultimately be a detriment to the family? Yeah, duh, maybe their kid, legally under their supervision, shouldn't have filed a [U]DCMA counterclaim[/U]. This means the kid, out of ignorance or not because again, the law doesn't give a shit about ignorance of the law, swears under penalty of perjury, among other statements, that his content was not an infringement of copyrights. This means the kid submitted, among other things: [quote] Either a physical or electronic signature A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled. The subscriber’s name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located.[/quote] Now should a 14 year old have the power to file a DCMA counterclaim? I personally don't think so. I think at that point, it should have to have been legally filed by his guardian [I]ad litem[/I](legal guardian), but that's not exactly how the law works in this instance as the copyright laws are sort of, rough, to say the least. The best outcome for this is that they reach a good faith settlement, because honestly Epic's hands are kind of forced on this one due to how DCMA copyright laws work. Anyway the point of what the effect of this suit will be is moot because there is still the possibility they could just admit they were wrong and Epic can essentially(not completely) drop the suit, among many other outcomes. Depending on how the lawsuit goes it's very possible they could reach a settlement prior to actually going to court that amounts to basically the retraction of the counterclaim and minimum legal fee coverage to forget the whole thing. The mother's gone ahead and made a fool of her self with her "WELL THEY'RE IN THE WRONG EVIL CORPORATION TRYING TO HARM MY BABY SKREE!!" letter on the matter so I doubt it'll settle out easily, but again that's not Epic's doing, but the result of a shit set of laws. In the end I personally would like this case to result in a reform to DCMA copyright laws, because you're not wrong in saying that it's bullshit, it is bullshit. Among other things I think we'd need to see a greater definition to the set of rules both in the law and on platforms like youtube, to keep shit like this from happening again. In normal laws, a minor can only sue or be sued through a litigation guardian, similarly it should require the same for a DCMA counter claim to be processed, but it apparently doesn't. This is a problem for obvious reason. Requiring people to be 18, or legally sponsored by their guardian, through age verification or otherwise, before being content creators on youtube would solve that issue partially, as it'd raise the barrier of entry to make it so only people with a hopefully proper understanding of their action's potential consequences, would make these claims. A counter claim made by a 14 year old should have been thrown out due to what is otherwise a lack of legal capacity to contract, sign court documents, etc. If the legal guardian made the claim on behalf of their child, then full steam ahead, that's their fault for not doing as much as a quick google search on what DCMA counter claims entail.

[QUOTE=eirexe;52927024]Only in the US btw, other countries don't have shitty laws and allow you to modify your stuff in most cases.[/QUOTE] That really depends. If it's an online game, you're still using the service illegally. Also note that most countries don't have the DMCA, so companies can¹ and often will sue or C&D you [I]immediately[/I] for copyright infringement. We also don't really have fair use over here, so game streaming is [I]technically[/I] even more of a legal issue. In practice most companies allow it though. ¹Does this differ from the US?

Hahahah, epic games is going to lose this one hard :v:

[QUOTE=dannass;52927521]Hahahah, epic games is going to lose this one hard :v:[/QUOTE] Honestly the only thing that's rocky about this is their claim that putting up videos of your self hacking in their game is a violation of legal use. They may very well loose, but not due to the extra details this case is suddenly about. Everything else on this case, other than the actual reason they're going to court, has nothing that'd really ruin the case for them. Absolute best case I think at this point, is that since the kid technically has no legal capacity to contract, sign court documents, etc, in all other laws that maybe they could get the counter claim dropped. But that still would not mean Epic lost. In fact it'd simply just cause the case to become void and Epic's claim would still stand valid. And since parents are legally considered completely responsible for the actions of their kids online, that isn't likely to be something that'd be brought about without a settlement between defense and plaintiff.

[QUOTE=F.X Clampazzo;52927526]Honestly the only thing that's rocky about this is their claim that putting up videos of your self hacking in their game is a violation of legal use. They may very well loose, but not due to the extra details this case is suddenly about.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure there's legal precedent regarding let's-plays and streaming, which is why a lot of companies published waivers a while back and Nintendo is able to scoop up earnings from YouTube videos about their games. I assume the streaming permission in this case was conditional on the rest of the EULA staying in place, so if someone breaks it they also lose the right to stream the game or publish a video showing off the modifications in online play (except for fair use, but as mentioned before that doesn't seem to regularly apply to game streams). That said, I'm not a lawyer and not in the US, so huge chunk of salt. For example, over here the mother would almost definitely lose because parents are responsible for what their children do online with very few exceptions, but I don't know at all how the US handles this kind of situation.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;52927546]I'm pretty sure there's legal precedent regarding let's-plays and streaming, which is why a lot of companies published waivers a while back and Nintendo is able to scoop up earnings from YouTube videos about their games. I assume the streaming permission in this case was conditional on the rest of the EULA staying in place, so if someone breaks it they also lose the right to stream the game or publish a video showing off the modifications in online play (except for fair use, but as mentioned before that doesn't seem to regularly apply to game streams). That said, I'm not a lawyer and not in the US, so huge chunk of salt. For example, over here the mother would almost definitely lose because parents are responsible for what their children do online with very few exceptions, but I don't know at all how the US handles this kind of situation.[/QUOTE] I'd wager you're right, I'm not a copyright lawyer, nor do I have much experience with the current precedent on game streaming. Also another thing I've come across, due to how DCMA policy stands with most companies, they usually publish DCMA takedowns, both the claims and counter claims, in a public fashion to some degree. Depending on Youtube's specific DCMA policy, the kid, by giving his legal name and information in the counter claim, may have agreed to the publication of his name and information, so the mother's claim that they violated the law there may again be void. It's honestly looking like she took a few minutes to make some dubious legal claims then wrote a heated letter to some journalists in hopes that the PR nightmare would win her the battle.

I love how people in this thread actually believe that 14 year old could fully understand the implications of the dmca and is actually using the ignorance of the law argument in reference to a 14 year old Remember that all 14 year olds totally understand laws and are totally old enough to know exactly what they are doing. Lets not forget that they aren't even old enough to drive or make their own life decisions. But they are old enough to understand the justice system and laws. Makes perfect sense. [editline]27th November 2017[/editline] I agree the dmca was in the right most likely but come on lmao

Yeah if by presenting the real facts of the situation and stating raw legalistic interpretation someone is suddenly "actually believing that a 14 year old understands the implications of DCMA laws." Then you'd be right. Fortunately I don't think anyone ever actually said, "the kid should have just learned DCMA laws lmao get recked little faget." I personally never said that anyway, unless I missed something here.

[QUOTE=J!NX;52927899]I love how people in this thread actually believe that 14 year old could fully understand the implications of the dmca and is actually using the ignorance of the law argument in reference to a 14 year old Remember that all 14 year olds totally understand laws and are totally old enough to know exactly what they are doing. Lets not forget that they aren't even old enough to drive or make their own life decisions. But they are old enough to understand the justice system and laws. Makes perfect sense. [editline]27th November 2017[/editline] I agree the dmca was in the right most likely but come on lmao[/QUOTE] That's kinda why parents are supposed to supervise what their children do online to some extent, especially with contractual stuff, and hence why the mother is being sued instead... I don't think anyone expects children to understand the relevant laws or whatever, but parents can be expected to teach their children they shouldn't do anything legalese on their own, and I think most 13 year olds can be expected to understand that much at least. It's still somewhat scummy on Epic's part though, assuming they didn't just hit them with a C&D or similar first.

[QUOTE=usaokay;52928728]He doesn't get a free pass if he's just 14 and didn't know about the laws.[/QUOTE] Especially when there's a huge warning which you have to agree to when filing a counterclaim that basically explains [b]"DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED TO GO TO COURT."[/b] Also another thing that seems to be missing is that the video apparently wasn't just a video of the kid cheating, the video demonstrated to viewers [i]how[/i] to cheat. Some devs have been successful in claiming that this violates their IP in the past, so the precedent is there to support Epic's initial DMCA claim. It shouldn't have gone any further than this, but the kid fucked up which forced Epic to take further action in order to keep the video down. But this case will most likely be settled before it gets too far in court, hopefully without any major repercussions for the kid other than the video staying down.

He's fucking 14. Hope they settle out of court and just give him a harsh word or two and that's it. He is still a child. 14 year olds can be very immature and some can be mature for their age but on this case I'm going with the former. The kid just needs a reality check and told the severity of the situation he's found himself in.