Publisher Activision has been fighting cheaters in its games for a long time. Call of Duty games before. Recently, the company sued the website EngineOwning for illegal and monetized distribution of cheats for Call of Duty: Warzone.

Activision takes legal action against cheat website

Activision tries to put a stop to cheaters by all means. With a “multi-layered anti-cheat security initiative.” they are cracking down on cheaters. This included, on the one hand, the Ricochet anti-cheat driver, which was created by Raven Software in Call of Duty: Warzone (buy now ) was inserted.

The Ricochet driver is used to find and ban cheaters in the game. But the publisher also goes against the Sources of these cheats and is defending itself in court.

At January 4 2022 Activision filed in the state of California a lawsuit against EngineOwning one of the most popular websites currently selling cheats for Call of Duty: Warzone and other online shooters.

EngineOwning offers subscriptions with cheat packs. Among them are aimbots, wallhacks, radar, triggerbots, recoil and bullet spread removal, rapid fire and various anti-cheat detection workarounds.

EngineOwning’s cheats are for various Call of Duty games available, as well as for several Battlefield games, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Titanfall 2, Splitgate and Halo Infinite. Cheats for Overwatch they are also working right now.

Lawsuit against EngineOwning

The lawsuit states that EngineOwning has damaged the company’s intellectual property by using illegal cheats in its games. Activision is asking EngineOwning to stop using cheats on the company’s IP.

Activision’s lawsuit “seeks to stop the unlawful conduct of an organization that distributes and sells for profit numerous malicious software products for the purpose of providing unfair competitive advantages to members of the public.”

In addition, the publisher is “claiming defendants’ profits.” Failing that, Activision alternatively seeks the maximum statutory Damages in the amount of $2,500 for each violation by the defendants, as well as compensation for legal costs.

How will EngineOwning respond?

The lawsuit states that EngineOwning is a German online company consisting of numerous individuals. The individual members of the website are also blatantly named in the lawsuit.

How EngineOwning will now respond to the lawsuit is yet to be seen. So far they have not publicly commented on the lawsuit. But it’s a fact that they have never hidden themselves and their Cheats always distributed openly and for all to see. have.

About her Twitter account they also made it clear that they will continue to offer cheats despite Activision’s lawsuits against other cheat providers.

“Due to recent news that another provider has discontinued their CoD cheats after legal issues with Activision, we want to clarify that we will continue to offer cheats for current and future Activision games, including Warzone.”

They also made the case on Twitter made fun of the introduction of the Ricochet driver, knowing that they can bypass the anti-cheat software.

Can EngineOwning be prosecuted?

The real question is whether a lawsuit from the US has standing in Germany. German companies can be sued in the USA, even if the company’s registered office is not in the USA.

It is enough “Minimum Contacts” to the state in which the lawsuit was filed. Minimum contacts” means corporate advertising or business activities in the plaintiff’s state.

The recognition of foreign judgments, including those from the U.S., is also governed in Germany by § 328 of the German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO). Accordingly, foreign judgments can be recognized by a German court in recognition proceedings and subsequently enforced.

Activision’s lawsuit must therefore first be recognized by a German court. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.