2 Billion Won! TERA's Developers Are Condemned for Plagiarizing Lineage 3's Source Code

In terms of Lineage 3's code disclosure lawsuit, the South Korean court has recently ruled that the 4 core developers of Lineage 3 (including the former development director) and their current employer Bluehole Studio should compensate NCsoft with 2 billion Won.

This is the civil ruling, following the criminal one in which the core developers of Bluehole Studio were found guilty (on Jun. 26, 2009, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced the former development director of Lineage 3 - Mr. Park to a fixed-term imprisonment of one and a half years with a 2-year suspension of execution for malfeasance and disclosure of business secrets). According to Bluehole Studio, they're not satisfied with the judgement, and will lodge an appeal immediately.

On Jan. 28, the civil department of the Seoul Central District Court rendered a verdict and required the 4 involved defendants including Mr. Park to compensate NCsoft with 2 billion Won. Meanwhile, the defendants were also ordered not to disclose NCsoft's business secrets to any others, but clear up all related data in hand.

Though at present, NCsoft wins the lawsuit no matter if it's in the criminal judgement or in the civil one, it's still unknown if the MMORPG TERA under development by Bluehole Studio will be fatally affected.

Relevant Event

Mr. Park, formerly in charge of Lineage 3's development, got in touch with a Japanese company in 2006 with the aim of attracting investment, and disclosed certain plans related to Lineage 3. Mr. Bae, who was responsible for other projects at that time, was also involved in this matter. Moreover, the former developers of Lineage 3 including Mr. Kang and Mr. Yo switched over to Bluehole Studio after the cancelation of Lineage 3, and applied certain technologies originally adopted in the development of Lineage 3 in Bluehole Studio's new project - Project S1 (currently named TERA). Learn more...