Epic Sues Another Fortnite Tester For Leaking Chapter 2

I have a hard time imagining a big corporation like this can honestly seek money like that over this kind of thing. It looks like corporate bullying to me.

The key point is that he signed an NDA and then broke it.

Contracts are just legalese for two parties agreeing, formally, to do a thing or set of things.

If you don't agree with a contract, don't sign it!

@JayJ I suspect it's less about money and more about making it clear that if you break an agreement with them, there are consequences. As there should be. If people can break contracts whenever and however they wish - contracts themselves become meaningless. There has to be a consequence.

@JayJ This isn't someone with a YouTube channel who has no responsibility to Epic. This is someone who signed and then broke an NDA. It's not bullying, it's holding someone accountable.

The point of these lawsuits is to crack down on leakers who (in my opinion) ruin the fun for the company and the fans.

They get their five minutes of internet fame and can ruin the work of company and the momentum of their big reveal.

What’s more, these particular leakers are clear idiots. They signed contracts and broke those contracts. Contracts actually mean something. If you make a promise, keep it. Real life isn’t a game. Our actions have consequences.

-Grumpy old man rant over-

@JayJ When I worked at an almighty corporation, they were hardcore about proprietary info and being aware of corporate espionage. They were hardly casual about it. In my case, the seriousness was hard to forget. I'll admit, I don't know enough to know what a company could do, though. (and then that company sold us and moved operations to mexico. bless their hearts)

@Kienda hmm. "idiots" is accurate.

"But, I gotta leak SOMETHING! My followers are depending on me to bring them insider news!!"

Definitely shouldn't have done that, because he lost his job and now probably other companies would not want to hire him.

People would do anything for 5 minutes of fame. Has always been like that.
I do not play Fortnite, but, personally, hate spoilers so IMHO it's good that leakers get what they deserve.

@JayJ This isnt bullying to me, this is someone who broke NDA that he signed. That is punishible in my book no matter how rich the company is

$85k?!

When microtransactions become JUMBO transactions!

I totally agree that people breaking their nda's (or any contract they've willfully signed) should suffer the consequences.. But... The amount of $$$ they ask for seems excessive, yearly income and other factors should play a role, it's not like Epic lost a ton of dollarinos on this, so they have a hole they desperately need to fill.

There's a line, and it isn't thin, between what a resonable consequence is and ruining lifes for many years to come

@kukabuksilaks Corporations ruining individual’s lives doesn’t sit right with me either, but it’s the court’s role to decide what is reasonable compensation and I can’t really blame Epic (as the wronged party) for setting a high upper limit (most likely with the full expectation that even if that is the damages set then it will come down through appeals etc. and even after that it’s unlikely the full award would ever be paid by the respondent).

We'll either way the game sucks so does it really matter? Not really. Sucks to be him though.

@kukabuksilaks “it's not like Epic lost a ton of dollarinos on this, so they have a hole they desperately need to fill. There's a line, and it isn't thin, between what a resonable consequence is and ruining lifes for many years to come“

I mean if we’re going to use that argument, the “reasonable” thing would be to seek no zero damages at all. The player should just be banned from testing updates and/or banned from the game in general. Reasonable isn’t something that comes into play when it pertains to business and the player decided to test the limits of it clearly.

@Nintendoforlife

I don't see a ban as a serious consequence, there needs to be a punishment that both deter others and can be felt by the culprit.
$10k falls around there, when you're dealing with regular people.

Reasonable might not come in to play when it pertains to corporations, but PR do come into play and this lumps Epic into the "heartless corporation" group whose members act excessively greedy and without any heart or soul 'because they can'

Epic absolutely has to do this, otherwise their future NDAs will be worthless.

@kukabuksilaks Yeah that is the only real issue I have with it. I understand NDA's and the importance of that and yada yada yada but the way they are trying to enforce it rubs me the wrong way. There is no way that I am ever going to feel bad for a massive multi-billion dollar corporation and feel good about them trying to sue people for excessive amounts of money. I think this whole mentality of "needing to punish because we can" is highly flawed at best, especially when these corporations are known to treat their own employees very poorly with little to no repercussions.

They sign a contract. They have to respect it. Simple as that. If anyone says it is Epic who is to blame clearly they are children that have never worked in their lives.

Like @JayJ who even says that Epic is bullying. Are you serious? Protecting your work is bullying?

Fortnight! Fornight! Fortnight!
I swear if see one more news story on this overratted crap fest i think I'm going to scream! Is this the next call of duty or what?

But I told my followers that this was a picture of Hello Kitty Battle Royale.

@Zuljaras Ok or not it is usually punished by hefty fines and a disinvite from the industry.
What was he thinking?

Well Epic Games in DEMANDING that amount, it's not set quite yet.

But they broke NDA and they should be punished, as simple as that. How much and with what is court to decide. And yes. It needs to be bad enough to make others think twice before pulling this stuff for their 15mins of internetfame.

They chose to break the contract. There is only one guilty part in this case and it's the guy who did this. Not Epic Games.

@Hagemaru

"So what if the said leaker received 50K to 100K for leaking such content to publications or YouTubers? 10K fine plus ban is enough?"

Of course not, that's just silly, if he made any money from it the fine should be larger than whatever he made, and it makes the whole deal worse than 'just' posting pics or info on some forum.

"What if he was paid by Fortnite rival game/company to spy on them? Etc."

Then it's corporate espionage, and not just a dweeb craving internet points.

Imo ~33% of yearly income could be reasonable (depending on a lot of things).

I work at Keywords Studios Montreal as a Project Lead, and I can say that everyone in our 3 Montreal offices (around 1,800 staff) thinks that this guy (who no one knows) is a complete moron.

I don’t think what this guy realizes the impact of his 2 seconds of fame within his tiny friends group. This kind of leak makes the company look less reliable as a client for game developers to work with as some genius working on a temporary contract at minimum wage decided to break the NDA. This kinda crap results in less job stability in an industry where job stability and permanent contracts are rare. I hope he gets hit with more than 85,000$ worth of damages.

@Brandonintendo lol uhhuh, uhhuh... sure.

@chardir Absolutely. Past precedent is important. If Epic knows of people violating their NDA and chooses to do nothing about it, then one can argue that the NDA is meaningless.

Someone, or multiple someone’s, seem to be downvoting nearly every reply siding with Epic and calling out the leakers as the at fault party. Generally I’m not one to side with a company, but this should just be common sense. Don’t agree to an NDA, then break it, then expect nothing to happen. Sadly so many people lack common sense, that’s life kids, grow up and face the consequences.