Bungie hits with $7.6 million lawsuit a copyright impersonator

Remember kids, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

Bungie hits with $7.6 million lawsuit a copyright impersonator

Remember kids, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

Earlier this year a ton of DMCA takedown notices for Destiny 2 content on YouTube hit several creators including some of Bungie’s own content.

Immediately Bungie announced that the notices came from an unknown account impersonating the company. Sadly there wasn’t much to do as YouTube’s copyright system were hard to navigate and finally took the matter to court in an effort to get Google to disclose the identity of whoever was responsible.

Revenge?

Months passed until the studio got a name; a Destiny 2 player named Nick Minor, who goes by Lord Nazo on YouTube was responsible for filing false DMCA claims on Bungie’s behalf, against other streamers and the studio itself.

Apparently Minor created two fake Gmail addresses impersonating staff of CSC Global, a copyright management firm representing Bungie. You may be wondering why... Seems like Minor planned this after he himself was served with DMCA takedown demands in December 2021 for uploading the original soundtrack for 2015’s Destiny: The Taken King.

According to Bungie’s lawyers, this caused Bungie significant reputational and economic damage, for obvious reasons.

You wanted revenge, you got… a lawsuit!

Bungie’s lawsuit was filed in the Western District of Washington state, where Bungie’s headquarters are located. The suit seeks at least $7.6 million, or $150,000 for each of 51 instances in which Minor allegedly infringed Bungie’s registered copyrights in issuing the false takedown demands.

On the other hand, the complaint also noted: “to demonstrate that serious consequences await anyone else foolish enough to […] target Bungie’s community for attack.”

We should remember that this is not the only lawsuit held by Bungie right now, demonstrating that they are not taking lightly any kind of attack.

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