Tecmo, which has published Ninja Gaiden, the Dead or Alive series, are suing fans for making custom skins for the characters ingame. I wish I was slanting this article in some way or other to excuse how absurd this lawsuit is, but I am not. There is no illegal gamecopying involved. You have to purchase and own the Tecmo titles to make this work. What is involved are a bunch of blokes who reversed engineered the title and figured out how to make extra content for the game.
I equate this with someone purchasing a book, and then being sued because he/she highlighted portions of the text (thus modifying the looks of its contents). To its defense, Tecmo is using the DMCA act whereby breathing is illegal, and to sway the courts is making use of the nefarious term “hacker”, as per the following statement: “Hacking of this kind will not be tolerated and we intend to take all necessary measures to protect our intellectual property.”
“Most of the skins posted on the Message Board by defendants show Tecmo Characters with appearances that are different from the original Tecmo designs,” the complaint further notes; “Several… are designed to make Tecmo Characters appear naked.”
To add insult to injury, Tecmo’s Pfeiffer says the company is seeking $1,000 to $100,000 in damages for every custom skin swapped over the website. So continuing with the highlighted book analogy, that’s like demanding $1,000 to $100,000 in compensation for every time I highlighted the book, EVEN THOUGH NOT DOING SO WOULDN’T AFFECT THE PLAINTIFF AT ALL. What does Tecmo gain by suing these folks? There are no lost sales due to the actions of the defendants (no piracy involved), why if anything, the sales go up! (The prospect of having attractive naked girls in a video game is enough to make any male want to purchase it.)
Another analogy: someone figures out how to integrate a GPS system in his car. But because he modified the car he owns, Ford sues him. Even though he bought the car, and modified it himself. He is demanded to pay incredible fees on the basis of how many modifications he made.
The full article can be read here.