Judge issues legal permaban, $500K judgment against serial Destiny 2 cheater
Judge issues legal permaban, $500K judgment against serial Destiny 2 cheater
Damn. That seems excessive. Then again, online cheaters are vermin.
Sounds like it was because of they were selling cheating software (and maybe versions of the game that allowed cheating?)
So the amount might be related to how much they made from doing that
They way it reads is that they were actually playing and circumventing bans, possibly selling accounts too maybe. They were streaming their exploits on Twitch too.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a consent judgment that has apparently been agreed to by both sides of the lawsuit (as dug up by TorrentFreak), district court judge Richard Jones agrees with Bungie's claim that defendant Luca Leone's use of cheat software constitutes "copyright infringement" of Destiny 2.
Specifically, the cheat software's "graphical overlay" and use of "inject[ed] code" creates an "unauthorized derivative work" that violates federal copyright law.
The judgment imposes damages of $150,000 for violations on each of the two infringed works (seemingly encompassing Destiny 2 and its expansions)
More than that, though, the judge issued a sweeping order requiring Leone to "disable, remove, or otherwise shut down any social network, video sharing, or digital messaging accounts under his control" that were dedicated to the promotion or discussion of his previous infringement.
Leone will still be able to use personal social media accounts but is warned against posting any content "connected to the use and proliferation of cheating software."
But Bungie has had a fair deal of success using copyright law as a legal cudgel against the makers of the cheats themselves.
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[Very sarcasm] It's nice that copyright just means a copyright holder gets to do literally anything they want as long as a relevant work is involved. Wouldn't want anyone to get away with any kind of local modification, tinkering, tweaking an old piece of software to work in a modern environment, some forms of modding... All obviously reprehensible violations of a wank gesture, eyeroll Copyright Holder's right to control distribution of their work!
IP law is so fucking vile, and yet proves it can continually get even worse :|
Edit to preempt, just in case: Also, no I don't need another bullshit lecture on how "IP law isn't a real thing, it refers to separate segments of law blah-blah-blah" but somehow can't be used as a term because some wankstain feels like being condescending.
Like... I don't disagree with the sentiment here when it comes to most things that have to do with copyright and modifications; but if you're using the modifications to get an unfair advantage in a multiplayer game, you're a piece of shit and deserve punishment.
For something like cheating and streaming your exploits on Twitch, it makes sense for a suit like this. Bungie’s reputation would suffer even more due to his audience being much more likely to seek out cheating tools, to associate the game with cheating, and to spread both those pieces of information themselves.
In a case where the damages are real and not contrived, copyright feels a bit more legit.
$500k feels extreme, though, even in this case. Is this based off real sales, stock prices, or back of the napkin math? Maybe mark it down to his scale of income. So they have $100 million in annual ebitda (and excluding any funny business like stock buybacks) and he makes $50k before taxes but after living expenses. That $500k is worth 1/600th of their annual income and so should be 1/600th of his: $250. Multiply that by as much as 10 due to the severity of his actions (or divide by as much as 10) and you’ve got $2500 in damages. Much more reasonable.
Bit rough going the opposite way, but fair’s fair.
I just hope "injected code" and "overlays" don't become somehow actually illegal because of these rulings because there are plenty of valid uses too.
I'm curious what uses you have in mind--anything that's an online competitive (i.e., you compete against other players--doesn't need to be esports sweaty) game I don't think there's a strong case for allowing injected code, since that's an avenue for gaining an unfair advantage and thereby worsening other players' enjoyment, and anything offline I can't see it being worth a company's time and money to prosecute.
Destiny 2 isn't really online competitive for starters.
Well Nintendo are very litigious they already DMCA'ed a Zelda Breath of the Wild multiplayer mod. (As in it made the single player game multiplayer)
I really wouldn't want them to have more power to hurt their fans.
I agree. Competitive games and code injection don’t mix but for those that are not competitive (i.e. minecraft), code injection is important.
I think the problem is that the ruling now establishes that overlays and injected code are a copyright violation. Therefor any overlay or injected code is now illegal unless you have permission from the authors if the game.