Recently, Irdeto, the parent company of Denuvo, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the cracker known as voices38. This marks the first time since Denuvo's inception that it has directly initiated legal action against a game cracker.
Over the past year, voices38 has cracked nearly 40 Denuvo-protected games, including major AAA titles such as Black MYTH - Steam Edition: Wukong, Hogwarts Legacy, Dead Space Remake, DOOM: The Dark Ages, and Resident Evil Requiem. The cracker uses traditional patches that directly modify the game's internal DRM checks, eliminating the need for users to disable Windows virtualization features. These patches have spread widely, and voices38 once set a record by releasing five cracked versions in a single day.
From a legal standpoint, Denuvo does not hold the copyrights to these games. The lawsuit is based on Section 1201 of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), accusing the defendant of circumventing technological protection measures and harming Denuvo's commercial interests, rather than directly alleging copyright infringement through game piracy. Since the true identity of voices38 remains unknown, the complaint lists them as an anonymous defendant, along with ten other unidentified associates.
Denuvo has locked down a batch of Reddit, Discord, and Steam accounts suspected to be linked to the cracker. It plans to request court subpoenas from Valve, Reddit, and Discord to obtain network and registration data associated with these accounts in an attempt to uncover the cracker's real identity. Simultaneously, it is seeking two legal remedies: compensation for damages and a permanent injunction prohibiting voices38 from cracking any current or future games protected by Denuvo.
Foreign media suggest that Denuvo's choice to pursue litigation rather than iterating its encryption technology in response to frequent cracks highlights the significant pressure voices38's continuous releases have placed on Denuvo's business. There are two possible outcomes for the case: the cracker may cease releasing cracks due to legal pressure, or they may have successfully concealed their identity and continue distributing crack patches. Whether this cracker releases new Denuvo-cracked versions in the coming weeks will serve as an indicator of the case's trajectory.