Ubisoft Sues Disc Manufacturer Over Assassin's Creed Leak

Ubisoft has taken a bit of a novel approach to the problem of piracy by suing the company it contracted to duplicate the Assassin's Creed game disc.

A report on GameSpot says Ubisoft launched a suit against Optical Experts Manufacturing of Charlotte, North Carolina, alleging "an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence" which resulted in an employee posting a copy of Assassin's Creed online six weeks before it hit the shelves. Although a number of security measures were designed to ensure such a thing didn't happen, Ubisoft claims the company failed to properly implement them, which ultimately caused the leak. The suit was filed after Ubisoft tracked pirated copies of the game to the home of an Optical Experts Manufacturing employee, and later found a copy of the game, manufactured by OEM, at the employee's home.

NPD Group numbers indicate the PC version of Assassin's Creed sold over 40,000 copies in the U.S. as of the end of June, while Ubisoft claims pirated copies of the game was downloaded more than 700,000 times, adding up to millions of dollars in losses. Further, a security bug included in pre-release versions of the game that causes crashes during play resulted in negative feedback toward the game, which led to consumer confusion and "irreparable harm" to Ubisoft's reputation, the company said.

Ubisoft is seeking $10 million in damages and legal fees each over charges of negligence and breach of contract, and is also suing for copyright infringement.