Sony loses EU court battle over PlayStation game add-ons

Third party add-ons for Sony PlayStation games that offer players extra options don’t breach EU copyright law, the European Court of Justice has said.   

The EU’s highest court found against the video games giant in a case seen as crucial to a games modding ecosystem worth hundreds of millions. 

“The Directive on the legal protection of computer programs does not allow the holder of that protection to prohibit the marketing by a third party of software which merely changes variables transferred temporarily” to working memory, judges said in a statement.

“The directive protects only the intellectual creation as it is reflected in the text of the computer program’s source code and object code,” they added.

Datel, based in the UK, sold software that let gamers get infinite boosts in racing game MotorStorm, and control the console using a motion sensor.  

Judges in Luxembourg were asked if that infringed 2009 EU laws on game copyright – given that, in princple, Datel’s add-ons don’t alter source code, but merely changed variables running in the working memory.

Sony had argued that Datel’s software “latches on … like a parasite” to the PlayStation game.

But in a non-binding opinion prepared for the EU court in April, Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said there was nothing illegal about using a copyrighted work contrary to the creator’s intentions.  

“The author of a detective novel cannot prevent the reader from skipping to the end of the novel to find out who the killer is, even if that would spoil the pleasure of reading and ruin the author’s efforts to maintain suspense,” said Szpunar, who also found against Sony.

Some have accused Sony of overreach in seeking to control how others modify, or “mod”, its products – a practice which underpins huge swathes of the gaming ecosystem.

“In how many other industries would this be acceptable behaviour?,” gaming activist Ross Scott told Euronews. 

He says altering PlayStation games is like adding highlights to a book, or changing the wheels on your car – and adds that letting users cheat on a one-player game is a “victimless crime”. 

Scott is organiser of a separate EU petition that looks to stop game companies from pulling the plug on online-only games and depriving customers of their product.   

The petition, launched after France’s Ubisoft shut down support for The Crew, an online-only racing game with around 12 million players, has already gained over 370,000 signatures – though Scott recognises that’s not enough to force the European Commission to take action. 

A more expansive view of copyright law on the lines of Sony’s “could endanger lots of software on a wider scale,” he said. 

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“If you were to take away every game that could trace its origins to modding, I’m sure it’d be hundreds of millions of dollars,” he added, citing hugely popular games such as Fortnite that evolved from older antecedents. 

Representatives of Sony and Datel did not respond to a request for comment.