Destiny 2 developer Bungie is suing a Bungie impersonator for falsely claiming DMCA notices on Destiny related YouTube videos.
As reported by PCGamesN, Bungie has filed a lawsuit against one Nicholas Minor. The video game developer claims that after Minor had received a copyright notice on their own Destiny 2 YouTube videos, they created a number of fake email addresses pretending to be Bungie itself. And in turn filed a number of fake DMCA notices to other YouTubers, essentially acting as a Bungie impersonator.
Minor ran a YouTube channel under the name Lord Nazo. Which according to PCGamesN had previously uploaded music from the Destiny expansion The Taken King. This music had a takedown notice filed against it in December 2021 by CSC Global, which acts as Bungie’s brand protector.
According to Bungie’s filing, Minor allegedly refused to take the videos down. But they were removed by YouTube in January of this year.
what happened next?
In turn, Minor registered a new Gmail address, one that mimicked the email addresses of CSC Global employees. Then, in February, more Destiny music was uploaded to the Lord Nazo channel. And again, Bungie filed a takedown notice.
As a result of this, Minor then made a second CSC-style email address. Which according to Bungie’s filing (via The Game Post) “began to send out a wave of fraudulent takedown notices.“
Bungie was informed of Minor’s actions when it received data from Google, outlining the takedown notices supposedly from CSC. The developer also claims that Minor took these actions to damage its reputation amongst players and the Destiny community. As well as retaliation for the takedowns Minor had received.
The former Halo developer is seeking damages of up to $7.6 million dollars, $150,000 “for each of the works implicated in the fraudulent takedown notice.” A sum that large is likely to send a message to any other people that might think to attempt the same.
Earlier this year, Bungie was acquired by Sony for £2.6 billion.
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Featured Image Credit: Bungie
Source: PCGamesN, The Game Post