Bungie Wins Over $4 Million Lawsuit Vs. Destiny 2 Dev Cheats

Bungie for two years legal battle against a Destiny 2 cheat maker finally concluded last week. The judge agreed that cheat maker AimJunkies had infringed Bungie’s copyright and ordered it to pay more than $3.6 million in copyright infringement. Damages and $700,000 in legal expenses.

AimJunkies is a website owned by Phoenix Digital Group, which creates aimbots for Destiny 2 and other FPS games. The first lawsuit began in 2021, and the courts initially favored AimJunkies, with a judge Reject some of Bungie’s claims After discovering that cheating was not an inherent copyright infringement. Bungie re-filed the lawsuit in May, and Cheater Maker v more aggressive strategy To defend itself from Bungie’s other lawsuits. Even AimJunkies Try claiming that the developer has violated their copyrights by reverse engineering their cheat program code.

according to the documents found torrent freakCourts found that AimJunkies infringed Bungie’s copyrights Destiny 2. A cheat engineer reverse-engineered the game’s code in order to create and sell aimbots, often circumventing bans to do so. This was a direct violation of the software license agreement he had to accept in order to download the game.

The judge believed that Phoenix Digital Group had not been particularly cooperative with the developer’s legal requests. After Bungie sent the company a cease and desist order, the owner of AimJunkies falsely claimed that he had in fact sold the site. The court also found that Phoenix Digital Group had “deleted records of fraud programs and destroyed financial records related to the sale of fraud”.

The company’s willingness to “hide” fraudulent sales contributed to a heavier penalty than it would have otherwise received. The judge awarded Bungie $2,500 for each of the 1,361 violations. The total damages amounted to $3,657,500. The court also awarded Bungie $738,722 in legal fees.

Whereas the previous suit from 2021 found that Destiny 2 The cheats did not infringe Bungie’s copyrights, and the current judge believes the software violated Washington’s consumer protection laws. The court determined that players who use cheats have a cheating and unfair advantage over players who do not.

So there you have it: a combination of copyright laws, destruction of evidence, and player rights helped Bungie’s attorney secure more than $4 million in fees and damages.