Just over Two months ago, we reported on a case where Take-Two Interactive filed a lawsuit in August 2018 against a man from Flordia called Jhonny Perez for developing and selling mod menus for Grand Theft Auto Online and breaching Take-Two’s copyright. They wanted $150,000 to cover the damages he had caused.
The modding software that Jhonny created, known as ‘Elusive’ was being sold for between $10 and $30 depending on what you wanted and according to Take-Two was used to grief other players and ruin the experience for them whilst playing the Online version of Grand Theft Auto V.
Previous to all of this, Take-Two and Rockstar Games wanted to negotiate with Jhonny so they didn’t have to take it to court and sue him but he decided to ignore any contact they tried to make with him, leaving T2 with no other choice but to propose a default judgement to a New York Federal Court for the maximum amount you can claim in Copyright damage. It was estimated that $500,000 was made by selling the Mod Menu.
According to Take-Two, the cheat menu cause irreparable harm to the game and resulted in severe losses. Jhonny also had to pay an additional $66,868 in attorney fees. Totalling the amount to $216,868. He was also prohibited from any more activities of infringement in the future. Although the proceeds were going to be donated to a charity, which Take-Two could choose, the Judge made it clear that the money has to go directly to Take-Two Interactive.
This is the highest amount anyone has ever had to pay in damages in a game cheating lawsuit.
