On 12 January 2017, the German Federal Court of Justice has handed down its second landmark decision on cheat software within three months. After clarifying the question under which conditions cheat software may constitute copyright infringement in October last year, the Federal Court of Justice has now decided that cheat software can constitute an act of unfair competition, too.

To be able to play online games, e.g. World of Warcraft (WoW) or Diablo III , it is necessary to download a client software and install it on the computer. Achieving progress within the game regularly takes several hours. To save time and to easily achieve the goals of the game some companies develop software, so-called cheat- or buddy-bots, allowing the player to overcome the challenges of the game automatically. Online game developers are not pleased by this fact, which is why they try to prevent the distribution of such cheat bots up front.
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