Assassin's Creed illegally downloaded 700,000 times

Ubisoft files suit against the company that it contracted to produce copies of the game.

GameSpot reports that Ubisoft has filed suit against Optical Experts Manufacturing, the company the publisher contracted to reproduce copies of the Assassin's Creed game disc. The suit is a result of the game being leaked onto the Internet six weeks before the game was scheduled to be released at retail.

Ubisoft alleges that "an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence" on the part of OEM enabled one of the company's employees to take a copy of the game home before its release and release a copied version on the Internet.

Ubisoft claims the leaked version of the game was downloaded over 700,000 times, costing millions of dollars. Ubisoft is also claiming that its reputation was also damaged by the leak.

The publisher is suing Optical Experts Manufacturing for copyright infringement, breach of contract and negligence. It is seeking damages and legal fees of no less than $10 million for each claim.