League of Legends is one of the most successful competitive multiplayer games in the world. It has sparked worldwide championships and millions of fans. But, for several months the game was in the middle of a lawsuit, until now. Riot Games has won a settlement in its lawsuit against LeagueSharp, a paying service that offered automated bots to win League of Legends games. The agreement has LeagueSharp paying League of Legends $10 million, ban users from using the software and gives Riot control over their websites.
LeagueSharp shut down last January but, the terms of the settlement were not publicly released until now.
Riot Games claims that LeagueSharp’s tools violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by overriding League of Legends anti-cheating software.
But, LeagueSharp reportedly didn’t play fairly with Riot. According to reports, the company attacked Riot’s servers and even doxxed one of the enterprise’s employees. Also, the company allegedly formed a shell company to hold their copyrights and avoid legal action.
About League of Legends
League of Legends was the most played PC game in North America and Europe by 2012. By 2014, the game had over 67 million players per month, 27 million per day, and over 7.5 million players playing at once during peak hours. Also, the game is hugely popular on streaming gaming platforms including YouTube and Twitch.tv. By 2016, the game had over 100 million active players every month. The game was so popular that it has led to merchandising of toys, clothes, music videos, documentaries and even books. The game then became a competitive e-gaming sport with the 2016 World Champion having 43 million unique viewers, which is nearly as big as the 2017’s NFL Super Bowl.