Destiny 2 cheat maker owes Bungie $4.4M after judge rules it violated the DMCA

February 21, 2023

Destiny 2 cheat maker owes Bungie .4M after judge rules it violated the DMCA

Bungie has won a $4.4 million arbitration award against AimJunkies after a judge found that the cheat maker violated the DMCA by bypassing Destiny 2’s protections and reverse-engineering the game in order to develop cheats which it then sold to players.

Bungie unleashed the lawyers against multiple Destiny 2 cheat makers beginning in 2020, including PerfectAim (opens in new tab), GatorCheats (opens in new tab), and Ring-1 (opens in new tab). But it ran into a snag against AimJunkies in May 2022 when a judge dismissed the copyright infringement portion (opens in new tab) of Bungie’s claim: AimJunkies argued that its software was an original creation and so does not constitute an “unauthorized copy,” and the judge in the matter ruled that Bungie had failed to demonstrate otherwise.

The judge in the case gave Bungie leave to re-file the complaint with additional evidence to bolster its claim, however, and also determined that other, separate claims, including trademark infringement and DMCA violations, were sufficient to proceed. The bulk of those claims—everything excluding the copyright, trademark, and “false designation of origin” allegations—were referred to arbitration, as agreed by both AimJunkies and Bungie.

Following a hearing in December 2022, the arbitration process has now concluded with a big win for Bungie. In the ruling (opens in new tab) (via TorrentFreak (opens in new tab)), judge Ronald E. Cox found in favor of Bungie on all the stated claims: That AimJunkies violated the DMCA by making its cheat software and then selling it to the public, breached its contract with Bungie by violating the terms of service, committed “tortious interference” by messing with Bungie’s business, violated the state of Washington’s Consumer Protection Action, and committed “spoliation” by lying in its response to Bungie’s initial cease-and-desist order and destroying financial records and other relevant documents.

Despite AimJunkies’ aggressive and partially successful defense against Bungie’s initial lawsuit, it doesn’t seem to have put up much of a fight in the arbitration process. David Shaefer, the part owner and “managing member” of AimJunkies parent company Phoenix Digital Group, testified during the hearing but “was not a credible witness,” the judge found. AimJunkies also “failed to present any evidence to the contrary” against the DMCA violation claims, and to respond to a request for a briefing on the amount of the awards involved—in other words, to tell the judge what it thinks a fair penalty would be, which might mitigate the damage somewhat.

Here’s what that damage adds up to:

DMCA circumvention violations: $2,500 x 102 violations = $255,000
DMCA anti-trafficking violations: $2,500 x 1,361 violations = $3,402,500
DMCA violations total penalty: $3,657,500

That’s not the end of it. The judge also awarded Bungie $598,641 in attorney’s fees, $101,800 for expert witness fees, and $38,281 in “other expenses,” leading to a grand total of $4,396,222.

The same day the arbitration ruling was issued, Bungie submitted it to the court presiding over the still-ongoing copyright infringement case, with a request that the court use the ruling to impose a permanent injunction (opens in new tab) against AimJunkies, and to apply the financial judgment in its favor. Assuming the court does (and it apparently has no standing to refuse), that will effectively end the case.

The day after winning the arbitration case against AimJunkies, Bungie also filed for a default judgment of $6.7 million (opens in new tab) against another cheat maker called LaviCheats. Bungie’s case against LaviCheats actually began in 2021, but LaviCheats has refused to acknowledge or respond to the complaints. LaviCheats did remove Destiny 2 cheats from its website after Bungie emailed the company and posted a message about the legal action to its forums, but Bungie believes that LaviCheats operator Kunal Bansal simply moved the business to a different site called Cobracheats.

I’ve reached out to Bungie and AimJunkies for comment on the arbitration ruling, and will update if I receive a reply.

Original Source Link

February 21, 2023

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Pet Clicking Simulator Codes - Free Rewards

Mega Man X DLC | Minecraft

Related Articles

Microsoft is finally rolling out its controversial Recall feature that screenshots everything you do (again), but only for select users

John Romero’s brutal megawad Sigil 2 has formally chainsawed its way into Bethesda’s Doom + Doom 2 remaster

This shooter is billing itself as ‘the Battlefield Heroes you can actually play’

Marathon alpha test dates and how to play

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Adblock Detected