Earlier this year, the digital rights management landscape faced significant disruption when a wave of advanced hypervisor bypasses allowed video game pirates to successfully crack Denuvo-protected titles on their exact day of release. While those sophisticated bypasses generated headlines across the industry and forced Denuvo’s parent company, Irdeto, to promise immediate countermeasures, they were far from the anti-tamper firm’s only headache. For gamers and software pirates who preferred a more traditional, less invasive approach to bypassing digital locks, an anonymous cracker operating under the online pseudonym “voices38” continued to release a steady stream of old-school cracks that patched Denuvo’s security checks directly.
Unlike the complex hypervisor-based methods that required users to alter their system environments or disable core Windows security features, these traditional cracks worked out of the box, making them immensely popular within underground file-sharing communities. Catering directly to this surging demand, the output from voices38 accelerated dramatically over the summer months. The developer’s activity culminated in a remarkable flurry of activity earlier this month, releasing five separate Denuvo-protected titles in a single day. This relentless output did not go unnoticed at the corporate headquarters of Denuvo GmbH, prompting the software protection giant to take unprecedented legal measures.
On Monday, Denuvo GmbH escalated the situation by taking formal legal action against the elusive developer. In a civil complaint obtained by TorrentFreak and filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the Austrian security firm accuses the individual known as voices38 of systematically bypassing its Anti-Tamper technology across a staggering lineup of 26 different video games. According to the lawsuit, these actions represent a direct and willful violation of the anti-circumvention provisions outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The legal filing details how the person utilizing the voices38 handle has specifically targeted the robust protection measures safeguarding a wide array of high-profile entertainment products. The targeted software catalog includes older catalog titles such as EA Sports FIFA 20 and PES 2020, as well as a massive collection of recent global blockbusters and anticipated releases, including Hogwarts Legacy, Black Myth: Wukong, Resident Evil Requiem, and Doom: The Dark Ages.
“Defendant is a computer hacker who is focused on reverse engineering, hacking, or ‘cracking’ video games employing Denuvo’s Anti-Tamper product,” Denuvo states within the filed complaint, while explicitly noting that public online spaces such as Reddit served as primary distribution and announcement channels for the releases. “Defendant has bypassed DRM restrictions in copyrighted works, removing protections that allow copyright owners to restrict who may access their works, and allowing for pirated versions of those copyrighted works,” the company adds.
Because Denuvo GmbH acts as a third-party security provider rather than a game publisher or developer, it does not actually hold the underlying copyrights to any of the video games impacted by the cracking activity. Consequently, Denuvo lacks the legal standing to sue voices38 for traditional copyright infringement, a domain typically reserved for the game studios and publishers whose intellectual property is compromised.
Instead, Denuvo’s legal strategy relies entirely on the anti-circumvention provisions enshrined in the DMCA. Under this specific section of United States copyright law, it is strictly prohibited to bypass any digital lock, mechanism, or technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work. Furthermore, the statute forbids the distribution of tools, patches, or instructions specifically designed to help others bypass those copyright protections.
Crucially, the DMCA allows any entity that has suffered direct harm from these unauthorized bypasses to initiate a civil lawsuit in federal court. Denuvo argues that because its entire commercial enterprise revolves around selling tamper protection software to major industry publishers such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Capcom, Capcom, and Sony, the widespread distribution of these functional cracks directly damages its reputation, software reliability, and ongoing business operations. To the best of legal observers’ knowledge, this marks the first time that Denuvo has directly initiated a lawsuit against an individual software cracker in a U.S. court. While the complaint explicitly lists numerous game titles alongside their respective corporate publishers, none of those rightsholders are named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The most immediate obstacle facing the legal team is that the true identity of voices38 remains completely unknown. The initial court filing formally designates the defendant as an “unknown individual or entity,” alongside ten unnamed Doe defendants whose identities have yet to be uncovered.
Despite operating under a shroud of anonymity, Denuvo’s investigators have clearly performed extensive preliminary groundwork. The court filing explicitly lists a specific Discord user ID, a Reddit account handle, and seven distinct Steam profiles that the company firmly believes are intrinsically linked to the cracker’s operations.
Denuvo anticipates that the data associated with these digital accounts will eventually unmask the human being behind the handle. Modern video games must generally be purchased legitimately before they can be successfully reverse-engineered and cracked, and legitimate platform purchases on services like Steam invariably require valid payment details, billing addresses, or associated financial transactions.
Armed with an active case file in federal court, Denuvo now possesses the legal framework required to formally petition the judge for permission to issue third-party subpoenas to major technology platforms, including Valve, Reddit, and Discord. These subpoenas would legally compel the corporations to hand over all account registration data, IP logs, communication histories, and associated payment details linked to the identified profiles. While a formal discovery request has not yet appeared on the public docket, legal analysts expect such motions to follow shortly.
The federal complaint outlines two distinct counts of DMCA anti-circumvention violations, seeking substantial monetary damages alongside a permanent judicial injunction. If granted, this injunction would legally bar voices38 from circumventing Denuvo’s Anti-Tamper protection measures in any video games whatsoever, including future titles that have not yet been developed or released to the public.
That forward-looking provision may prove vital, given that the comprehensive list of 26 games cited in the complaint was already outdated by the time the paperwork was officially processed. In the weeks leading up to and immediately following the filing, voices38 continued to publish several additional high-profile cracks, including Persona 3 Reload and Star Wars Outlaws, demonstrating an active defiance of legal warnings.
Whether Denuvo will ultimately succeed in unmasking and holding voices38 legally accountable remains to be seen. Historically, sophisticated software crackers take extensive operational security precautions, utilizing VPNs, cryptocurrency, and encrypted communication channels to shield their physical locations and real-world identities from law enforcement and corporate investigators.
However, even if the anticipated subpoenas fail to yield a definitive name, pursuing the lawsuit is not entirely without strategic value for the security firm. Should Denuvo successfully secure a default judgment paired with a broad permanent injunction, the company will find it significantly easier to compel hosting providers, search engines, and file-sharing forums to remove download links, mirror sites, and discussion threads associated with the cracks. Furthermore, a decisive legal ruling in Denuvo’s favor could serve as a powerful deterrent across the underground cracking community, establishing a clear precedent that the software protection company is willing and able to pursue reverse-engineers through the federal court system.
For the time being, the legal proceedings remain in their absolute infancy. Observers will be watching closely to see what specific information Denuvo requests from Reddit, Discord, and Valve, and whether the enigmatic figure known as voices38 will ever choose to make an official appearance or legal representation in a U.S. courtroom.
In an immediate response to the news breaking across online forums, voices38 offered a brief, nonchalant public comment on Reddit regarding the federal lawsuit, writing, “All is fine. Everything will continue as normal.”
A complete copy of Denuvo’s civil complaint against voices38, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, has been obtained and made publicly available in PDF format.
The complete list of the 26 specific video games and their associated publishers cited directly within Denuvo’s federal complaint includes Need for Speed Heat (Electronic Arts), EA Sports FIFA 20 (Electronic Arts), Star Wars: Squadrons (Electronic Arts), Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered (Electronic Arts), EA Sports FIFA 21 (Electronic Arts), Hi-Fi Rush (Bethesda), F1 2021 (Electronic Arts), Dead Space Remastered (Electronic Arts), Doom: The Dark Ages (Bethesda), Mafia: The Old Country (2K Games), LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight (WB Games), Hogwarts Legacy (WB Games), Total War: Three Kingdoms (SEGA), Starlink: Battle for Atlas (Ubisoft), Shining Resonance Refrain (SEGA), PES 2020 (Konami), Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster (SEGA), Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Ubisoft), Anno 1800 (Ubisoft), Sonic Frontiers (SEGA), Assassin’s Creed Mirage (Ubisoft), Pragmata (Capcom), Resident Evil Requiem (Capcom), Black Myth Wukong (Game Science), Stellar Blade (Sony), and 007 First Light (IO Interactive).