Denuvo is on the hunt for DRM cracker 'voices38' as the company attempts to take one of its biggest foes to court
Step one: Finding out who "voices38" is.
Denuvo, a leading DRM provider, is pursuing legal action against an anonymous figure known as voices38, who is accused of circumventing Denuvo's anti-piracy measures on games such as Hogwarts Legacy and Black Myth: Wukong. This case distinguishes itself as the first of its kind initiated by Denuvo, rather than a game's individual copyright holder.
The targeted individual is recognized for releasing numerous DRM-circumventing patches, thus posing a significant challenge for Denuvo's intellectual property protection efforts. The lawsuit against voices38 is based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions, which forbid tampering with digital protections.
Denuvo lists various online accounts linked to voices38 in their legal filing, signaling the company's intent to subpoena platforms like Valve, Reddit, and Discord for identifying information. Despite the anonymity of voices38, Denuvo believes the defendant has intentionally circumvented their technological measures and has publicly disclosed how to bypass them, thereby enabling others to do the same.
Denuvo's software has received mixed reviews from gamers, with some considering it invasive and resource-intensive. However, major publishers continue to rely on Denuvo as an anti-piracy solution. The legal strategy employed by Denuvo in this case mirrors successful tactics used by Bungie and Activision against cheat developers in their competitive multiplayer games.
In the ongoing battle against cheat makers, some companies have resorted to suing them out of existence. However, this approach has been facilitated by the evolution of hack development for multiplayer games into a gray market business with identifiable, profit-driven entities to target, while piracy remains more diffuse and not inherently a profitable venture.
The successful identification and unmasking of voices38 is crucial for Denuvo's legal proceedings. voices38 has expressed a nonchalant attitude towards the legal threat, stating, "All is fine, everything will continue as normal," in a comment on the piracy-focused CrackWatch subreddit.
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