Bungie files a lawsuit against users behind False Destiny 2 DMCA strikes
Bungie, the developer of Destiny2, filed a lawsuit against the parties involved in a series DMCA strikes that occurred throughout March. These strikes affected content creators on YouTube as well as Bungie’s channel. The complaint can be read and targets up to ten individuals.
Bungie began this process in March by taking down Destiny YouTube channels that were dedicated to archive soundtracks. Most of these soundtracks are no longer available on any music streaming services. From March 16, a Reddit topic details how Promethean and Breshi were affected by the strikes. To avoid further problems, they were directed to remove all Destiny content. Bungie did not issue new DMCA strikes the next day. Bungie and its partners requested that the situation be addressed.
The fraudulent strikes targeted prominent content creators like AztecRoss and My Name Is Byf. The channels don’t focus on music archives but instead show gameplay clips. The issue escalated over the next days to the point that Bungie’s channel was affected. You might be wondering how YouTube managed to continue this chaos in such a short time.
Bungie partners with CSC Global, a third-party vendor, to process DMCA claims. A series of strikes were filed between March 17 and 22, by alleged perpetrators who used fake email addresses. These emails were presented as first, last, and then followed with [email protected]. They were then approved. While it is unusual to receive an email from a company without their domain, it appears that this did not raise any red flags.
The claims were successful and affected all parties that had uploaded videos to Destiny, while still respecting copyright requirements. Bungie’s intellectual property guidelines state that Bungie will not request removal of content if Bungie allows players to monetize it. However, Bungie does say that Bungie won’t generally ask for takedown requests if less than 20% of the content in the video was created by the player.
“The most recent wave” of takedowns were unusual and we found out that they contained takedown actions by fraudulent accounts. This was confirmed by the developer who posted this week at Bungie the day before the lawsuit was filed. Bungie also asked for patience as YouTube corrects the fraudulent DMCA notices and requested that the community refrain from harassing members of the community or employees of CSC.
The Destiny 2DMCA odyssey does not end there. Information on Damian Reynolds, one of the alleged victims of the false strikes is also included in the lawsuit. He began sending emails to CSC stating that “you’re all in it for it now” but to “better get running” because the “clock is ticking”. David Thomson, the alleged source behind the davidthomsoncsc address, was also emailed by the same account. He stated that “if you were me, I’d delete your Google account right away because Bungie (and possibly even Google) will come after you hard.”
This is where the situation becomes even more dire. The lawsuit continues with information about YouTube users Aussiehalo, and Breshi. They allegedly forwarded Bungie’s community team an email that was allegedly sent by the Jeremy Wilands Account. This email relates to false strikes and the account also takes credit for fraud in the form a “Manifesto”. The lawsuit includes a section that claims the person is “one of those who filed false takedowns for videos uploaded by you and other members of the Destiny group”. The lawsuit then details that David Thomson, the alleged author behind davidthomsoncsc issued false takedowns several months back to them.
After a long time of hoping Bungie would notice, and seeing that the issues didn’t raise enough awareness for possible solutions, the person behind Jeremy Wilands’ account “had to escalate” the matter on their terms. They claim that if they had not taken matters personally, many people wouldn’t have had their takedowns removed. Although the person claimed that they intended to retract the takedowns, and cease issuing them once Bungie acknowledged the issue; there’s a lengthy message that targets YouTube’s vulnerabilities in regards to anyone being able claim DMCA strikes.
It is not clear how this situation will continue. Bungie has issued a subpoena in an effort to find the true strikers. The developer also shared guidelines for users who upload music tracks to their channels to archive purposes. The uploaded content must not be an OST song Bungie has released or posted elsewhere publically. It cannot be monetized and the creator must contact the licensing team before submitting it.
