Epic Games continued its fight against Fortnite cheaters this week when the studio filed a lawsuit against popular gaming YouTuber Brandon “Golden Modz” Lucas with fellow YouTuber Colton “Excentric” Conter attached as a second defendant. The suit alleges that Lucas and Conter endorsed the use of Fortnite cheats within videos on their YouTube channels. Lucas was additionally accused of promoting the sale of Fortnite cheat engines on his channel.
According to legal complaints (via TorrentFreak) filed in North Carolina Federal Court, Epic accused the two of “copyright infringement, breach of contract, and tortious interference” due to their practice of “injecting unauthorized cheat software (‘cheats’ or ‘hacks’) into the copyright protected code of Epic’s popular video game [Fortnite].”
The filing also points to videos on Lucas’s channel in which he promotes websites he operates, such as godenmodz.com and gtagods.com, that sell Fortnite cheats.
“Lucas is operating these websites and selling these cheats and accounts for his own personal enrichment. He posts videos of people using the cheats for the same reason. His ill-gotten gains come at the expense of Epic and members of the Fortnite community,” read Epic’s legal complaint.
Conter regularly teams up with Lucas for Fortnite duos and squad streams, during which the two refer to their use of aimbot hacks as “magical powers” while promoting giveaways and where such “powers” can be purchased.
Taking legal action is old hat for the stringently litigious Fortnite developer, which has filed two lawsuits previously, including one against a 14-year-old boy, over the use and promotion of Fortnite cheats. These latest filings also come on the heels of Epic’s acquisition of game security firm Kamu last week.
Despite this history, Epic’s latest legal claims move the studio into new territory as it has never taken on a content creator as popular as Lucas. His more than 1.7 million subscribers place him much higher on the popularity scale than previous Epic targets.
Epic is requesting Lucas and Conter discontinue their practices and compensate the developer an undetermined monetary amount in damages and attorney fees.
