Destiny 2 has been in legal dispute with cheat provider AimJunkies for months. Most recently, they tried to pull their heads out of the noose with a counterclaim, claiming that Bungie had hacked themselves. In the end nothing helped. Bungie gets the equivalent of 4 million euros from AimJunkies and immediately sues the next provider.
What is the lawsuit? In April 2022, the next cheat provider was targeted with AimJunkies. Bungie wanted to prohibit the provider from continuing to offer its cheats for Destiny 2.
Then, in the fall of 2022, the tone at Bungie hardened. The developer called in top attorney Don McGowan and launched an aggressive legal tactic with him. He explained at the time that they wanted to better protect honest players in the future and were making a “strategic move” to do so.
Since then, Bungie has not only been hunting for cheaters in the game. Above all, you want to approach the people behind the game and thus the sellers of cheats. To achieve that, the developer doesn’t shy away from tough, month-long battles, like the one with AimJunkies.
In fact, AimJunkies was initially successful and things looked bad for Bungie in the ongoing process. Still, Bungie had no intention of backing down. The developer, with the permission of the court, quickly amended his lawsuit. With success.
AimJunkies has to pay 4 million euros in damages
In the arbitration, which took place behind closed doors on February 20, Judge Ronald Cox sided with Bungie, handing AimJunkies a crushing defeat.
This is how the decision was justified: The justification states that AimJunkies and the third-party developer involved, James May, intentionally circumvented Bungie’s technical protection measures in violation of the DMCA.
May has testified that on many occasions he has reverse engineered tools attached to the Destiny 2 process to reverse engineer it and create a cheat for the game. He also testified that after being caught and banned multiple times by Bungie, he tried various ways to circumvent the bans and protections Bungie had put in place to prevent reverse engineering. Thus, the circumvention was malicious.
Given the egregious and willful conduct of the respondents, including their continued concealment of sales, Bungie is entitled to full statutory damages.
stated the competent judge of the federal court in Washington in the arbitration
In addition to violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, the defendants were also held liable for trading, selling, and shipping the cheats.
PvP players rejoice: The community celebrated this success on Reddit and Twitter. For example, player SwizzAyeee writes, “Hopefully at some point every cheat site will be afraid to create cheats for Destiny for fear of being sued.”
A good deal for Bungie: Exactly that, a high risk for providers of Destiny 2 cheats, seems to be the goal of Bungie.
As Torrentfreak published, Bungie’s fight against cheaters now even extends across several continents. The aim is to rigorously bring all providers and all those involved to justice. It’s a good deal for Bungie that’s paying off more and more often.
Bungie grabs one cheat provider after the other
Now it’s LaviCheats turn: Just 1 day after defeating AimJunkies, Bungie has filed a default judgment in the equivalent of $7 million against the alleged operator of LaviCheats.
Cheat sites blame each other: In a message published on the site, LaviCheats stated that he will no longer sell Destiny 2 hacks as a result of the lawsuit. At the same time, however, LaviCheats also advised Destiny 2 players to buy cheats from CobraCheats instead.
The operator had thus betrayed himself in a certain way. Bungie believes that Kunal “Lavi” Bansal, based in India, has moved his illegal activities related to the cheat software to one or more other websites, including cobracheats.com, upon receipt of the lawsuit notification.
Here, too, the allegations revolve around the anti-circumvention provision of the Destiny 2 DMCA. Bungie wants to win almost €1,900 per cheat for each of the 2,790 downloaded cheat copies and is not giving up on this project.
Studio Behind Destiny Demands Millions In Fine For Cheat Vendors – Demanding Nearly €1,900 For Each Cheater
The claim with all allegations totaling 6.3 million euros is absolutely justified. Bungie emphasized in court that the company had to spend millions of dollars to fight scammers. Therefore, it is only appropriate to send another strong message.
The federal court in Washington must now examine the application and decide on it. Without a defender, there is probably nothing standing in the way of another Bungie victory, in this case against LaviCheats.
What do you think of this development? Does this mean Bungie is on the right track in the fight against cheaters? What chance of success do you see in Bungie’s efforts? And do you think other providers will think about it sooner?
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