Since the beginning of the year, there has been quite a heated incident centered on domestic game user communities.
This is a dispute between two companies, Nexon and Ironmace, over the game 'Dark and Darker'.. Let's take a look at the detailed article by reporter Kim Jae-seok from Dice Gamez below.
The Hot Steam Game 'Dark and Darker' Was Actually a Nexon Project Leak?
https://www.thisisgame.com/webzine/nboard/265/?n=167590
In short, there was a game called "P3" being developed at a Nexon internal studio, and its core development staff left to create and release a game called Ironmace, which is exactly "Dark and Darker."
However, when this game appeared on Steam as a beta version, it received good reviews from users worldwide, creating a situation where it seemed like a new god-tier game had arrived... but it turns out it may have been an incident involving taking a project that Nexon was developing and releasing it without Nexon's permission.
Currently, Nexon has filed a report with platforms like Steam via the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) procedure, and since the dispute is ongoing, sales have been completely suspended. It is reported that Ironmace officially delayed Dark and Darker's Early Access as of today.
What Exactly Happened in the Dark and Darker Case?
https://www.thisisgame.com/webzine/news/nboard/263/?n=170178
Since this is a hot topic in the domestic game industry, I had the opportunity to discuss the matter online last month with Kim Jae-seok, a reporter from Dice Games, and Lee Young-rak, a manager at MS, an IT expert.
Actually, I don't really follow Nexon, nor am I a heavy Steam user, so I only knew the basics of this case.. But while talking with reporter Kim Jae-seok, I found some stories that I could view quite interestingly.
1 ) The Story Related to the DMCA.
– First, last year, my spawn assets were misused in an NFT project without my intention, so to resolve this, I also went through the DMCA procedure to sanction each platform operator so that they could not promote that NFT project.. Thanks to that, I understand the content well.
So, I also summarized it as follows.
Occasionally, people misunderstand the DMCA process as if a legal decision was made that Ironmace infringed on copyright, causing the game to be removed from Steam!! However, that is not exactly correct. It should be understood that Nexon, claiming their rights were infringed, compiled evidence and filed a DMCA report with the platform (likely Steam here), and the platform accepted it, suspending sales so that the service could not be provided until the dispute was resolved.
Simply put, the DMCA is not a law for copyright protection per se, but rather a procedure where a platform operator, upon determining a copyright dispute, stops selling the content in question and accepts the copyright holder's claims to suspend sales or publication according to procedure. Under this, even if the content is later deemed illegal due to a violation of copyright or other laws, the platform operator is not held liable.
In short, if the copyright holder raises an objection, they introduce each other (?) so that the copyright holder and the copyright infringer can meet on the link and fight it out, and then let us know the result; until then, the content will not be posted or sold… is that it?
Therefore, Steam is not recognizing Nexon as the copyright holder or Ironmace as the infringer, but is proceeding with the DMCA process because it finds Nexon's claims to be reasonable. ” Really? Then I'll suspend sales for now, you guys figure it out~~ ” That's all it is.
Therefore, from now on, Nexon's legal representative and Ironmace must go to court and follow legal procedures, whether to seek a judgment or reach an agreement..
2) Unfair Competition Prevention Act? DMCA? What about data security?
而且有趣的是，通常我们认为这种情况是按照著作权法进行的……但实际上，据说很多情况下是按照《反不正当竞争法》进行的。
Actually, in the Dark and Darker case, Nexon also filed a lawsuit against a former employee, A, for violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Act and trade secret protection.
Asked a Copyright Attorney: "Who Will Win the Dark and Darker Dispute?"
https://www.thisisgame.com/webzine/news/nboard/11/?n=168977
I don't know the details, but based on what I heard while chatting briefly, I think it's important whether the data the former employee moved to a personal NAS while working on the P3 project at Nexon was used in the Dark and Darker project or not.
(I don't know much about the law, so this is just my personal opinion.)
So the difficult story will be resolved by Nexon and Ironmace in court or through their legal representatives..
From the perspective of someone working in the game development industry, this situation raises the question of how data security should be handled..?
Actually, when I worked at a company's research lab over a decade ago, leaking data externally was very difficult and cumbersome. Even though I was provided and used a workstation costing over 5 million won at the time.. I had to use it with performance worse than a PC worth less than 1 million won due to various security programs.. The company took security extremely seriously.
When I was a junior with little experience, I once used a personal USB to move a presentation on my computer because I found it annoying. Within a few hours, the security team at the lab contacted me. I was reprimanded all the way from my team leader to my group leader to my mentor to me, and I remember writing a kind of explanation letter.
And when going on business trips or taking data out to the outside (even if it was just simple PPT presentation materials), you had to receive a security USB and write extremely annoying application forms and affidavits to take the data out.
When it was physically difficult to export data, a kind of VPN environment was installed, and data could be downloaded to the network only through designated terminals. However, I still remember that the process was very inconvenient and slow..
It goes without saying that when using a smartphone for personal use, you had to attach a security sticker, and while it had become second nature at the time, it was actually a very annoying and difficult environment. (A sticker that reveals itself when the sticker is applied?)
It's roughly like the sticker below..
Sometimes, when I have to work outside and take my computer or data with me, my mentor would bring a security sticker from wherever he got it and stick it all over the computer, pasting it on every single port... and would frequently go check to make sure no one had touched anything.
From my perspective as a newcomer at the time, this entire process felt like a lot of unnecessary trouble.. (Actually, it seemed that even if you did that, you could easily leak the data if you were determined..) The inconvenience was no joke, but.. as time passed and I got to create my own content on a small scale and experienced my creations being misused, I came to think that this entire security process is quite important.
In that sense, it is truly regrettable that such an incident occurred at Nexon, the largest game company in Korea..
Of course, the area of creation is a bit different from the research institute I attended, and it wouldn't be easy to clearly distinguish between core data and the area of creation.. But there must be their own rules and security handling methods.. I wondered how we should view this case.
While we must wait and see the outcome, if it is confirmed that former employee A actually took P3 data during their tenure and used it for the development of Dark and Darker, that would of course be a major issue for the employee. However, from a slightly different perspective, it also seems like an issue for the security managers or executives responsible for managing and securing the company's data. Going further, it could even involve the management board...
As I write this, I feel like I'm drifting away from the core of this widely known incident.. I think this is an incident that creators and companies should examine at least once when they create content like games and use assets from the Asset Store, or when they work on projects using content created by many others, from this perspective as well.
Also, while discussing the story, there was a rumor that Nexon had originally purchased or downloaded some data from the Unreal Asset Store to proceed with P3 (I don't know if it was partial or the whole thing...). If that's the case, I think we should also take a look at the Unreal Asset Store license.
Alternatively, this could lead to a completely different story, so I was thinking about creating another online discussion to explore the future regarding the Asset Store and licensing.