Nexon America Inc. v. Ryan Michael Cornwall

Although I have no doubt that duping costs nexon a sizable sum of money, I don't believe that the defendants can be held responsible for it. The closest thing that they do would be coding hack shield bypasses that allow exploiters to view packet structures, functions, etc, and then edit these packets to exploit various areas of the game.
I see it more as a kitchen knife that is only a murder weapon in the hands of the murderer.
Therefore, while botting may cause nexon to lose some money, it is nowhere near the amount that they claim.

The defendants, or at least some of them, created the methods which allowed duping. How can they not be held responsible for the abilities which they clearly intended? To borrow your metaphor, this isn't a kitchen knife that can be used for something mundane like cooking, it is a AK-47 designed to kill. In theory, it could be used as a physics experiment for purely academic research that harms no one, but that isn't what it's purpose is. The bypasses, injectors, etc. where intended for and successful in allowing hacking activities which cost Nexon revenue. The defendants are legally responsible for the easily foreseen and intended consequences of their actions. Sure, Nexon probably inflated the amount lost to the maximum they can get away with, but that hardly means they didn't lose significant revenue. Since there isn't even a specified amount in the documents (that I recall), I don't see how it can automatically be outrageously high anyway.

[MENTION=6263]Killed[/MENTION]; I'm sure there are many reasons unrelated to hackers that caused Nexon to lose players. I can personally say that I quit buying NX ~2years ago primarily because of hacking related problems, although not exclusively because of them. I personally know people who quit or refuse to buy NX because of it. I can't say what percentage of the population or revenue Nexon lost, but they certainly lost something and I would guess (an educated guess I hope) that it is a significant portion of their income.

As for the selling NX, that NX doesn't just appear from thin air as there is no such thing as a NX spawning exploit (item spawning is another story). It's had to have been purchased by someone and charged to their account sometime where it then becomes entangled in the mess that is the MTS.

The NX was purchased by someone somewhen, but that isn't the point. The point is how much NX was purchased versus how much would have been purchased. Even with the NX taxes in the MTS, some of the NX has been floating around for quite some time and the availability of purchasing NX at discount rates directly decreases Nexon's revenue. If people are buying NX from hackers, they clearly aren't buying it from Nexon as they would have been otherwise.

I don't think many people are going to argue that it's all the hackers' fault. Nexon has certainly fucked up the game many times all by itself for all kinds of reasons. That does not mean that hackers didn't make it worse or that getting rid of them (if this is even possible) wouldn't make the game better.