Bungie is suing the individual behind a number of bogus Future 2 DMCA takedowns.

March 2022 noticed Bungie and numerous YouTubers hit with a DMCA takedown. On the time, it wasn’t clear who was issuing the takedowns, however Bungie ultimately discovered who the malefactor was, and has filed a lawsuit.

Based on the submitting, the offender’s title is Nicholas Minor who goes by Lord Nazo on YouTube. Apparently, Minor was issued a takedown discover by Bungie on YouTube, went off the rails, and ultimately began concentrating on Bungie and distinguished Future YouTubers.

“After receiving the takedown discover, Minor left his infringing video up for
the utmost attainable time – till late January 2022, when YouTube deleted it – and
as a substitute created a brand new Gmail tackle supposed to imitate the syntax of the e-mail tackle CSC used for Bungie’s reputable takedowns,” reads the go well with.

“In February 2022, he bought and uploaded a number of tracks from one other OST – this time, for Bungie’s newest launch, The Witch Queen. When Bungie had CSC ship DMCA takedowns for this second infringement and different infringing movies on his channel, Minor acted. He registered a second pretend “CSC” e mail tackle and started to ship out a wave of fraudulent takedown notices.”

Ninety-six separate instances, Minor used the pretend mail addresses claiming to be representing a rights holder for functions of issuing a takedown beneath the guise of Bungie’s “Model Safety” vendor. This triggered undue stress for harmless content material creators and “important reputational and financial harm” to Bungie.

“The Future neighborhood was bewildered and upset, believing that Bungie had reneged on a promise to permit gamers to construct their streaming communities and YouTube channels on Future 2 content material,” reads the submitting. “Future neighborhood members had been additionally misled to imagine that Bungie’s model safety agent was additionally fraudulent, inflicting confusion amongst customers as to the authenticity of reputable DMCA notices.

“Bungie needed to dedicate important inner sources to addressing it and serving to its gamers restore their movies and channels – an effort sophisticated by the truth that whereas YouTube has a kind that permits anybody to assert to symbolize a copyright holder and subject copyright strikes, it has no devoted mechanism for copyright holders who’re being impersonated to let YouTube know concerning the DMCA fraud. This meant that Bungie needed to work by a number of layers of YouTube contacts over a interval of a number of days earlier than it may adequately talk and start addressing the issue.”

It goes on to say within the submitting that Bungie is entitled to damages in an quantity to be confirmed at trial, and entitled to damages and injunctive reduction. This consists of enhanced statutory damages of $150,000 for every of the works implicated within the Fraudulent Takedown Discover that willfully infringed on registered copyrights, totaling $7,650,000.