After winning one high-profile, multi-million dollar lawsuit against violators of the League of Legends terms of service, Riot have dusted themselves off and got right back to it. This time it’s against DivineSmurfs, an account-selling site which Riot say has been vendoring stolen accounts, meaning those who buy them end up taking the blame when discovered.
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The lawsuit was filed on Friday in California and accuses one Zachary Kaufman of operating the site. It reads “defendants pretend, through the unauthorized use of Riot’s intellectual property, to run a legitimate business instead of a fraudulent enterprise.”
Where the stolen accounts come from isn’t detailed, but in similar cases it’s generally through simple keylogging measures. The accusation is that the stolen accounts are quick flipped to buyers with added incentives, then when the original owners come a-calling (backed by Riot, natch) the account is lost, the seller is in profit and the player is out of pocket.
Riot’s (rather amusing) page on account buying says they’re not happy about the practice at all. However, in the case of it being fraudulent it’s actually against the law, rather than simply against their policies. They’re going to ban you either way, but if they think you nicked it through illegal action, you’re in deeper trouble.
It’ll likely be many months before any of this works itself out. We’ll catch up with it then.
Thanks, Polygon.