Dark And Darker Can Move Ahead With Full Legal Certainty After Court Ruling

Darker and Darker can continue development and move forward with "full legal certainty," developer Ironmace announced, following a South Korean Supreme Court ruling that upheld a lower court's copyright-dispute ruling and dismissed appeals from both Ironmace and Nexon in what has been a years-long legal battle.

Ironmace was founded by former Nexon employees, who Nexon accused of stealing trade secrets related to a canceled Nexon project codenamed "P3" in order to make Dark and Darker. Ironmace stated it never used stolen Nexon assets or code to create its game.

As reported by The Korea Times, last year, a court ruled Ironmace did infringe on Nexon trade secrets when Ironmace CEO Choi Ju-hyun stored Nexon data on a personal server before establishing the independent studio. The developer was ordered to pay damages, though, importantly, the court also found Ironmace not guilty of copyright infringement. An appellate court later concurred with the first court's ruling, but lowered the amount to be paid to Nexon to 5.7 billion won, or nearly $4 million dollars. South Korea's Supreme Court has now upheld that ruling, seemingly putting an end to issues stemming from Dark and Darker's copyright status.