Dark and Darker developer did not commit copyright infringement, court rules, but has to pay Nexon nearly $6 million anyway

A South Korean court has ruled that Dark and Darker developer Ironmace did not commit copyright infringement against Nexon, according to a Korea Times report. But Ironmace is going to have to fork over some bucks anyway, because the court also ruled that it did infringe on Nexon’s trade secrets.

Dark and Darker, a fantasy PvPvE extraction game, made a big splash when it first appeared in early 2023, even though it was in a pretty rough alpha state at the time. Before long, though, Nexon started making noise about it, accusing Ironmace of using “stolen” code and assets to build the game. Nexon was reportedly working on a similar project, codenamed P3, but pulled the plug on it in 2021; Ironmace was founded shortly thereafter by former Nexon employees.

Long story short, Nexon filed a complaint, Ironmace issued denials, investigations were conducted, and in March 2023 Dark and Darker was removed from Steam. The studio managed to turn the delisting into a bit of a PR coup by continuing to distribute its game through BitTorrent—”going old school,” as the studio put it—which an awful lot of players loved. Still, it’s better to be on Steam than not, and after a court dismissed Nexon’s preliminary injunction against Dark and Darker in January 2024, it returned to the storefront in June of that year.

Legal wrangling continued, however, and now the courts have come down with something of a split decision: Ironmace did not commit copyright infringement but did infringe on Nexon’s trade secrets. What’s the difference, you wonder? The Copyright Alliance says copyrights are specific, individual rights applied to “an original work that is fixed in a tangible medium like a photograph, a book, or an mp3 file.” Trade secrets, on the other hand, are less specific: “Information that has an economic benefit due to its secret nature, has value to others who cannot legitimately obtain it, and is subject to reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.”

So, I guess, because Nexon’s P3 was never actually a thing, copyright infringement is out, but because Ironmace seemingly built Dark and Darker on a foundation originally laid by Nexon—which had more or less kept a lid on the whole thing—trade secret infringement is in. And that’s going to cost Ironmace 8.5 billion won (roughly $5.9 million) in damages.

The good news for Ironmace is that Dark and Darker continues: The early access version on Steam holds a “mostly positive” user rating and continues to put up decent player numbers—currently there are nearly 14,000 people playing on Steam.

The bad news is that this may not be the end of the matter. Nexon said in a statement that the award is “meaningful, as it addresses illegal infringement actions that disrupt fair market competition.” But, it added, “After carefully reviewing the ruling, we plan to seek further legal judgment through a higher court.” I’ve reached out to Ironmace for comment and will update if I receive a reply.