One of the most frustrating aspects of DMCA notices outside the usual complaints aired by rightsholders, is their ability to trigger policies that assume notices are accurate and in some cases, should be blindly obeyed.

Certainly, if the sender of a bogus notice puts in enough effort, the end result can be the removal of whatever material appears in the notice, even when sent to the largest platforms most familiar with fraudulent claims.

In March 2022, someone began sending DMCA notices to YouTube, claiming that the content listed in the notices infringed the rights of videogame developer Bungie. YouTube removed the videos, some of which belonged to high-profile Destiny content creators. Other notices targeted Bungie’s own channels, yet fingers of blame soon pointed toward the company itself, compelling Bungie to defend its reputation and clean up the mess.

Impressive Investigation, Culprit Found

During the early days of its investigation, Bungie revealed that the notices sent to YouTube came from a fraudulent Google account; the username was crafted to give the appearance it was sent by a Bungie anti-piracy partner. Bungie also filed a full-blown lawsuit in the United States which is currently in its third year.

The lawsuit alleged that the bogus copyright complaints not only disrupted Bungie’s gaming community, it caused “nearly incalculable damage” to Bungie itself. The language deployed in the complaint was unusually aggressive , noting that one of its key aims was to “demonstrate to anyone else stupid enough to volunteer as a Defendant by targeting Bungie’s community for similar attack that they will be met by legal process.”

In June 2022, Bungie filed an amended complaint which demanded $7.65m in damages against a YouTuber called Lord Nazo, aka Nicholas Minor.

Not only had Bungie’s investigation tracked down the culprit, the details were laid out in unusual detail in the amended complaint. Bungie methodically followed the online trails, capitalized on the YouTuber’s mistakes, and then identified, located and named Minor as their defendant.

Among other things, the investigation showed how persistent email addresses, used across multiple sites, one of which was the victim of a data breach, critically undermined any assumption of anonymity. Bungie was ultimately able to match a confirmed email address with a historic content purchase, made through an account that carried Minor’s full name and physical address.

Trigger For the Takedown Campaign

In his deposition, Minor confirmed that the seeds of the campaign were planted when Bungie sent him a takedown notice via YouTube. The video had been hosted on his channel for eight years without issue, so convinced the notice was fraudulent, he sought help from YouTube hoping to get it restored.

When that failed to produce any results, a “confused” and “angry” Minor decided to “raise awareness” of transparency issues in the DMCA takedown process by filing bogus DMCA notices against legitimate videos uploaded by members of Bungie’s online community.

Minor reportedly accepts that he “gravely messed up and fully accept[s] that this is [his] fault” but claims he was “oblivious to the reprehensible damages [he] was causing to the community.”

Summary Judgment

In December 2023, Bungie filed a motion for summary judgment on the DMCA component of its overall claim. Minor did not oppose the motion but did appear in the case as required, including for his deposition and to provide discovery responses.

“The undisputed record before the Court shows that Minor violated the DMCA by knowingly, intentionally, and materially misrepresenting to YouTube that the takedown notifications were authorized by Bungie and that the material itself was infringing,” Senior District Judge Marsha J. Pechman notes in her judgment issued last week.

“Bungie has provided evidence that the materials at issue did not violate its IP Policy, and that the DMCA notices were not properly issued. And, crucially, Minor admits that he had no authority to issue the notices, that he intentionally and knowingly issued the notices, and that he ‘gravely messed up.'”

Referencing Section 512 of the DMCA, Judge Pechman notes that the evidence shows that Minor’s violations were intentional, and that he lacked a subjective, good faith belief that the targeted material was infringing.

“Bungie has also provided evidence that the fraudulent notices harmed its reputation and caused it to devote significant resources to attempt to remediate the harm. The Court therefore GRANTS summary judgment in Bungie’s favor on this claim and GRANTS the Motion,” the judgment adds.

Not Over Yet, Possibly Not For a Long Time

The Court notes that the judgment is partial since it does not resolve the question of damages, costs, and attorneys’ fees Bungie will likely claim in due course. The amount could be significant and at least in public, Bungie has shown few signs of mercy recently.

Then there are the rest of Bungie’s claims in this matter. They include false designation under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a), copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501, business defamation, violations of the Washington Consumer Protection Act, and breach of contract.

The order granting partial summary judgment is available here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Bungie’s interest in individuals linked to Destiny 2 cheat maker and distributor, Ring-1, became public in 2021.

A lawsuit filed at a California court named four defendants as suspected operators with an additional 50 ‘Doe’ defendants to be unmasked as the case progressed.

Six causes of action including copyright infringement, trafficking in circumvention devices contrary to the DMCA, trademark violations, and unfair competition, encouraged three defendants to settle with Bungie. However, with Ring-1 still in business, more work lay ahead.

New Lawsuit, New Determination

Filed at a Washington court early August 2023, a new complaint alleging copyright infringement, breaches of the DMCA, and civil RICO violations, among others, targeted up to 50 developers, marketers, customer support staff, and sellers of Destiny 2 cheating software offered by Ring-1.

According to the complaint , Bungie’s investigative work had already identified several defendants by name, while others were known only by their online handles. During September and October, identified defendants were served in West Virginia , Delaware , and Ontario, Canada , but in order to identify and serve more, on October 27, Bungie requested assistance from the court.

“Like the cheat itself, the Enterprise is sophisticated and its members go to great lengths to conceal their identities,” Bungie’s motion for expedited discovery explained.

“Many Defendants do not provide any contact information such as a physical address, email address, or phone number, and conduct their transactions entirely pseudonymously. Defendants also use privacy protection services to hide their names and contact information from the public domain name WHOIS database.”

Third Parties Likely to Hold Identifying Information

While those personal details had proven evasive up to that point, Bungie informed the court that it had been able to identify several third parties with past, current, or ongoing relationships with those it hoped to identify. Those parties, Bungie said, were likely to have records “uniquely attributable” to the unidentified defendants, and these would either directly or indirectly allow Bungie to identify and then serve its targets.

In respect of the Ring-1 website, Bungie named Nice IT Services Company (host), Digital Ocean (payment-related subdomains), and Telegram (support) as service providers that allow it to operate.

In connection with six alleged operators of Ring-1 (“Hastings,” “Khaleesi,” “Cypher,” “god,” “C52YOU,” and “Lelabowers74”), Bungie identified a further seven third party service providers upon which the Ring-1 operators reportedly rely; Twitch and YouTube (advertising), Streamlabs (enhance revenue, broaden reach) and Steam, where the defendants allegedly play Destiny 2.

Other providers include Yahoo and Live (where Hastings has email accounts), Google (where Khaleesi has a Gmail address), and Discord; according to Bungie, the alleged Ring-1 operators used to chat there before deleting their server in July 2021.

Bungie’s investigations reportedly identified accounts at ISPs connected to Hastings and Khaleesi; the former at Verizon and Comcast in the United States and the latter at Virgin Media and Sky Broadband in the UK. Five Ring-1 resellers identified by Bungie operated various services including Discord servers, websites, plus Twitter and YouTube accounts.

As a result, these third parties plus domain registrars Squarespace and GoDaddy, and e-commerce platform Sellix, are likely to hold identifying information, Bungie informed the court (sample of proposed order below) .

Order Granted in Part, Denied in Part

Having considered Bungie’s rather broad motion, United States Magistrate Judge Michelle L. Peterson handed down her order this Wednesday.

While most of Bungie’s requests were found to be “narrowly tailored” to seek identifying information, requests to serve third-party subpoenas to Cloudflare, Storely, Selly, and “any other third-party Plaintiff identifies to be providing services of any kind to any one or more of the Defendants” were described as unsupported or overbroad.

Even with these denials and especially considering the number of services involved, Bungie’s narrowly tailored request could prove pivotal for the entire case. As such, unless extreme caution was exercised at all times, it will only be a matter of time before Bungie begins serving additional defendants.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Bungie’s copyright infringement-based lawsuits against cheat makers, sellers, and those who use them, have divided opinion in unexpected ways.

While David vs. Goliath battles tend to have the masses cheering for the little guy, many videogame fans have grown tired of their enjoyment being spoiled by people who intentionally set out to spoil it.

The fact that many of these individuals pay out significant sums of money to gain an imaginary upper hand only serves to rub salt in the wounds. In one particularly malicious case, Bungie had clearly seen more than enough.

Familiar Case, Unusual Features

In July 2022, another Bungie lawsuit came to light. It targeted an individual who had deployed cheats in Destiny 2 and as a result, now faced claims of breaching security mechanisms controlling access to a copyrighted work.

For each violation of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, Bungie sought $2,500. For modifying the Destiny 2 game, thereby creating an unauthorized derivative work, Bungie was able to demand another $150,000. While complicated enough already, it soon transpired that Bungie had unwittingly sued ‘L.L.’ – a 17-year-old minor.

Luckily for Bungie, the details of the case quickly dispersed any sympathy for the teenager; DMCA claims found themselves overshadowed by allegations of a long-running harassment campaign against Bungie employees. L.L.’s decision to mount a particularly robust defense, absent of any remorse, was completely logical and looked absolutely terrible.

At least in the short term, it wasn’t particularly effective either .

Bungie and Teenage Nemesis Eventually Agree

In a proposed consent judgment and permanent injunction filed at a Washington court early this month, Bungie systematically repeats many of its original allegations, with the defendant quietly nodding along.

The defendant used software to cheat in Destiny 2. That software displayed a graphical overlay in the copyrighted Destiny 2 audiovisual work and injected code to facilitate cheats, thereby creating an unauthorized derivative work, in breach of copyright. The software circumvented Bungie’s technological measures in breach of the DMCA, with each use of that software representing an independent circumvention violation.

Further breaches of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision took place every time a new account was opened to evade a Bungie ban, and each unlicensed download of Destiny 2 was yet another breach of Bungie’s copyrights. All told, the parties agree that Bungie is entitled to $300,000 in statutory damages for copyright infringement, and a further $200,000 for 100 acts of circumvention at $2,000 each.

Grand total: $500,000 in damages

Permanently cease-and-desist

To ensure no repeat of the defendant’s alleged behavior, a wall of text in the proposed judgment restrains L.L. from having anything to do with any cheat software targeting Bungie-owned properties, having anything to do with any Bungie-related game assets, or interacting with any Bungie game, ever again.

Also prohibited is the direct or indirect harassment of Bungie or its employees, or anyone who plays Bungie games. The defendant cannot travel within 1,000 feet of Bungie’s offices, nor knowingly travel within 1,000 feet of any home of any Bungie employee, “except as is incidental to travel on public highways and roadways for purposes other than to make contact with or otherwise harass” Bungie employees.

L.L. is also required to embark on a comprehensive account deletion mission.

“This permanent injunction is binding against the Defendant worldwide, without regard to the territorial scope of the specific intellectual property rights asserted in the Complaint of the above-captioned case and may be enforced in any court of competent jurisdiction wherever Defendant or their assets may be found,” the consent judgment continues.

With that the parties request that judgment is entered in accordance with the outlined terms, including an award for $500,000 in damages in favor of Bungie. With all necessary lessons learned, the judge’s signature will bring the matter to a close. In theory, at least.

Related documents are available here ( 1 , 2 , pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

After reading the introduction to Bungie’s latest lawsuit, which targets makers and sellers of Destiny 2 cheats, one gets the impression the developer may be starting to enjoy this fight.

A Bungie-compiled list of online aliases, including PRAGMATICTAX, NOVA, J3STER and CYPHER, are the latest individuals to face legal action for developing, marketing, selling, and providing customer support for, tools that enable cheating in the blockbuster online game, Destiny 2.

Ten named defendants, several of them already identified by both alias and real name, sit atop a pre-allocated space marked ‘JOHN DOES NO. 11-50.’ At this stage of Bungie’s crusade against cheaters and those who enable them, it’s unlikely that space will remain empty for long.

Bungie vs. Ring-1: An Ongoing Saga

The lawsuit filed Tuesday at a Washington court shows a fine-tuning of Bungie’s legal tactics and a determination to finish the mission, even if that requires several bites of the cherry.

Individuals behind cheat maker and distributor, Ring-1, were targeted in a Bungie lawsuit back in 2021 . Bungie listed six causes of action including copyright infringement, trafficking in circumvention devices contrary to the DMCA, trademark violations, and unfair competition.

In February 2023, after reaching settlements with three defendants, a California court rejected Bungie’s request for a $2.2m judgment . With Ring-1 still in business today, Bungie now appears ready to finish the job.

”The days of Destiny 2 cheaters being free to engage in a wholesale assault on the Destiny 2 game and its community without fear of consequences are over”

(Bungie statement in new Ring-1 lawsuit)

Basis For Complaint

The introduction highlights Bungie successes in earlier lawsuits and suggests there’s now little need to establish whether certain types of conduct amount to an offense.

The sale and use of cheat software “violates a raft of federal and state laws, breaches users’ contracts with Bungie, and is a basis for significant tort liability,” Bungie writes. “Cheat manufacture and sale has been repeatedly found to violate copyright law [and] the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions,” the company continues, adding that when defendants are sufficiently organized, RICO violations enter the mix.

RICO violations formed no part of the lawsuit against Ring-1 defendants in 2021, but they certainly do now. Highlighting the refusal of Ring-1 to curtail its activities, Bungie lays down the law.

“Bungie’s litigation, and litigation victories, have not gone unnoticed; they have been widely covered in the gaming industry press and beyond. Defendants, in other words, have been more than placed on notice that their conduct is tortious, wrongful, and in fact illegal, and have had every opportunity to voluntarily cease it,” the complaint reads.

“Instead, the Ring -1 Enterprise has deliberately and willfully continued to engage in that conduct, secure in the belief that they can avoid consequences for it. And the Ring -1 Cheat is particularly dangerous, predicated on an insidious misuse of the hypervisor layer of users’ operating systems that puts their computers and others’ at risk.”

Ring-1 Defendants, From the U.S. to Australia

The investigation mantra “follow the money” appears to have bypassed lead defendant Joshua Fisher. The complaint notes he’s a resident of Birmingham, UK, and the sole proprietor of payment processing company, Paydash. That’s almost correct; Fisher was indeed the sole director of Paydash Limited, at least until it collapsed into liquidation more than a year ago, after failing to file its first set of accounts.

Liquidation documents make no mention of Bungie’s allegations, including the claim that Paydash processed Ring-1 payments while acting as a “middleman reseller” for Ring-1 cheats. Public records show that Paydash’s attempt to remain anonymous by utilizing a London virtual office address were undermined by Fisher’s address disclosures relating to at least one other business. Other defendants made poor choices too.

Bungie claims that defendant Jacob W. Mahuron is a Ring-1 support staffer residing in Delaware, who goes by the username “PragmaticTax” on the Ring-1 forums. Fellow support staffer Matthew Abbott (a/k/a “Nova”) allegedly lives in West Virginia, while David Hastings (J3STER) managed to keep his physical location private.

While there are lessons to be learned about using the same username internet-wide, the above defendants all used Discord. Bungie made a note of their unique IDs so whatever Discord has on file, is likely to be handed over as the case develops.

Other defendants include Travers Rutten (Travers7134), an alleged reseller residing in Brisbane, Australia, and reseller Jesse Watson (jessewatson3944) of ‘physical location unknown’ but resident of the ‘Softaim Express’ Discord server. ‘Calc’ is allegedly a Ring-1 developer, ‘Cypher’a Ring-1 staff member, ‘Khaleesi’ a support staffer, and the list goes on.

“Doe Defendants Nos. 11-50 are persons and parties whose identities are currently unknown to Bungie, but who, upon information and belief, are both complicit in Defendants’ torts and members in fact of Defendants’ racketeering enterprise, including cheat developers, resellers, administrators, and other agents of the enterprise,” Bungie adds.

Bungie Goes For the Jugular

The defendants face allegations of copyright infringement, Civil RICO (racketeering: wire fraud, criminal copyright infringement, money laundering), circumvention of technical measures in violation of the DMCA, violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Breach of Contract, Interference with Contractual Relations, and Civil Conspiracy.

“This conspiracy directly harmed Bungie, through lost business, an injured reputation, and the significant expense of its anti-cheating measures. As a result of the foregoing, Bungie is entitled to an award of damages in an amount to be proven at trial,” Bungie concludes.

Bungie’s complaint can be found here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

After filing a series of lawsuits against cheat developers, cheat sellers, resellers, and even gamers who use cheats, there’s little doubt that Bungie views cheating as a threat to its business.

After a Washington court awarded Bungie $6.7 million in damages against LaviCheats on Monday, the company scooped a damages award of $16.2m in the same court (but in a different case) on Tuesday.

For the sole defendant in yet another Bungie lawsuit, filed at exactly the same court in 2022, these headlines should make for uncomfortable reading. While the case doesn’t feature a cheat developer or seller, Bungie has shown few signs that it’s prepared to back down from its mission to stamp out game tampering.

Twitch Streamer Feels The Heat

In its July 2022 complaint , Bungie targeted a Twitch user who reportedly live streamed himself cheating in Destiny 2 while evading multiple bans. When it became apparent that the user was just 17-years-old, his name was removed from the docket and replaced by the initials L.L. Bungie continued, business as usual.

According to the complaint, L.L. and Bungie have a history. While using various pieces of cheat software, L.L. streamed his games on Twitch and using its own tools, Bungie detected his activity and banned him. L.L. responded by opening new accounts, which Bungie would eventually shut down. When L.L. posted a series of tweets in May 2022, in which ‘arson’ and ‘death’ were mentioned along with a named member of staff, Bungie was prompted into action.

In common with other lawsuits against cheaters, Bungie says that L.L.’s use of cheat software modified Destiny 2 and led to the creation of an unauthorized derivative work. That entitles the company to either $150,000 in statutory damages or an amount to be determined at trial. Bungie says that each time L.L. played the game, he also bypassed Bungie’s security measures. Citing violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, Bungie demands $2,500 for each time that happened.

More fundamentally, each time L.L. was banned and then signed up for a new account, he agreed to Bungie’s Limited Software License Agreement with no intent to comply with it; fraud according to Bungie. That’s on top of allegations that L.L. resold Bungie-issued digital emblems on a third-party platform with authorization to do so.

L.L. Came Out Swinging

Covered in detail last September, L.L.’s response to Bungie’s complaint can be summarized in a few key points.

Anything that L.L. may have said about Bungie was simply the teenager making fun of the company’s “apparently ineffective” efforts to combat cheating in Destiny 2. Since “Congress has not, at present, chosen to make [cheating] unlawful,” the defense continued, none of the alleged acts in the complaint violated any of Bungie’s rights.

Regarding violations of the LSLA, the court was informed that as a minor, L.L. has the right to disaffirm any contract within a reasonable time of becoming an adult. As it happened, he had already declared all contracts with Bungie null and void.

In its response to L.L.’s motion to dismiss, Bungie said the court could go right ahead and dismiss all of its claims related to the LSLA. While the LSLA prohibits things like cheating, it also acts as permission since it licenses certain actions, including playing the game.

With no license in place, Bungie said that every download and every play of Destiny 2 amounted to copyright infringement, potentially placing L.L. in a less advantageous position than he had enjoyed before.

In a subsequent filing, which appeared to reference the claim that Congress still hadn’t made cheating in games illegal, Bungie informed the court of the Yout vs. RIAA decision , which relates to the circumvention of technological measures that protect access to a copyright work.

Cheating may not be illegal but without circumvention, this type of cheating wouldn’t exist.

Court Steps in to Clarify the Law

In an order handed down this week, District Judge Richard A. Jones said that since L.L. had properly disaffirmed all contracts due to his status as a minor, he would now address L.L.’s motion to dismiss Bungie’s lawsuit for failure to state a claim.

With no enforceable contract between L.L. and Bungie, the Court dismissed Bungie’s breach of contract claim in connection with the LSLA. Bungie’s claim of fraudulent inducement, related to L.L.’s allegedly false statements when agreeing to the terms of the LSLA, is a matter to be addressed at a later stage, so was not dismissed.

Copyright Infringement

Bungie’s arguments in support of its copyright infringement claim were described by the Judge as “persuasive.” The cheat software “transformed Destiny 2 by manipulating the software to add visual elements overlayed on the original visuals in the game” and since L.L. had no permission from Bungie, that amounts to an unauthorized derivative work.

Attempts by the defense, to play down the anti-cheat provision in the LSLA, also failed. Any use of software to cheat in Destiny 2 was preannounced in the LSLA as grounds for immediate termination of L.L.’s license.

Anti-Circumvention Claim

Regarding Bungie’s anti-circumvention claims, the Court said that L.L. bypassed license access control measures when he agreed to the LSLA but with no intention to abide by it. He also bypassed Bungie’s “step control measures” when he created new accounts after being banned, and when he used cheat software to avoid detection by Bungie’s anti-cheat technology.

“The Court is not persuaded by Defendant’s cherry-picked reading of the DMCA that only establishes a violation when the Defendant decrypts, descrambles, or disables Plaintiff’s software,” Judge Richard A. Jones’ order continues.

“When read as a whole, the statute clearly states that avoiding or bypassing a technological measure violates the DMCA. Therefore, the Court denies Defendant’s motion to dismiss the circumvention of technological matters claim.”

L.L. enjoyed some success with the defeat of Bungie’s claim under the Washington Consumer Protection Act, which related to L.L.’s unauthorized sales of digital emblems. The Court accepted that L.L.’s cheating, selling, and other conduct caused injury to Bungie’s business, but the company failed to show that L.L.’s conduct is of public interest.

With the case set to continue, the Court invited Bungie to submit its first amended complaint.

Judge Richard A. Jones’ order can be found here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In the summer of 2021, game developer Bungie filed a complaint targeting three well-known cheat sellers; Elite Tech Boss, Lavicheats & VeteranCheats .

The case against Elite Tech Boss has been the most eventful thus far. Within a few months, this resulted in a consent judgment where a key defendant agreed to pay $13.5 million in damages.

That judgment didn’t settle the matter completely as Bungie still has other targets in its crosshairs . Meanwhile, there are other cases to resolve.

LaviCheats and VeteranCheats failed to answer the complaints filed in the United States. As a result, Bungie requested a $12 million default judgment against the latter a few days ago, shortly followed by a similar, albeit lower, claim against Lavicheats.com.

You’ve Been Served

Late last week Bungie filed a motion for default judgment against LaviCheats at a Washington federal court. The game company asked the court to rule on the matter without hearing the defendant, as they apparently have no interest in making a court appearance.

Bungie believes that LaviCheats is operated by India-resident Kunal Bansal, AKA “Lavi”. However, no known address exists for this person. To alert Bansal to the legal proceeding, Bungie sent an email and posted a message in the LaviCheats forums.

These unusual serving options were authorized by the court and proved successful. Although there was no response in court, Destiny 2 cheats were removed from the LaviCheats website.

In a message posted on the website, LaviCheats explained that it will no longer sell Destiny 2 hacks because of the lawsuit. At the same time, however, LaviCheats advised people to buy cheats at Cobracheats instead.

The referral is not a coincidence; Bungie believes that Bansal is also the driving force behind this cheat shop, as well as others.

“[A]fter receiving notice of this lawsuit, Bansal moved his unlawful activities with respect to the Cheat Software to one or more other websites believed to be owned and/or operated by him, including the websites located at cobracheats.com, lavicheats.org, and protocolv.com,” Bungie explains.

$6.7 Million Default Judgment

As the defendant failed to show up in court, Bungie moved ahead on its own. In the motion filed last Friday, the company requests a total award of $6,700,973.34. This figure comprises damages, attorneys’ fees and other costs.

The bulk of the proposed award relates to Lavicheats’ alleged violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. The game developer believes it’s entitled to $2,000 for each of the 2,790 cheat copies that were downloaded.

“Bansal’s […] ongoing conduct demonstrates a willingness to continue with his illegal activities, as to warrant a statutory damage award of at least $2,000 for each of the 2,790 Cheat Software for Destiny 2 that Bansal’s own website admitted were downloaded, for a total of $5,580,000.”

Bungie further alleges that Lavicheats infringed its copyrights, so is entitled to claim the maximum $300,000 in statutory damages for two titles. In addition, Bungie seeks $579,270 in damages for trademark infringements, an amount that equals Bansal’s Destiny 2 cheat profits.

High But Warranted

The $6 million figure is high but justified, Bungie tells the court. Stressing that the company had to spend millions of dollars to fight cheaters, it’s appropriate to send a strong message.

“[A]lthough the total amount Bungie seeks may be considered large, the damages are proportional to the harm caused by Bansal’s flagrant and willful violation of Bungie’s rights,” Bungie notes.

In addition to the damages request, the motion also seeks a permanent injunction, barring Bansal from engaging in any Bungie-related cheating or infringement activities going forward.

The Washington federal court has yet to review and rule on the motion. Without a defending party, however, little stands in the way of another Bungie victory.

—

A copy of Bungie’s motion for a default judgment against Kunal Bansal (LaviCheats) is available here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In August 2021, Bungie filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against a number of defendants involved in the development and supply of Destiny 2 cheating tool, Wallhax.

Last summer, Elite Boss Tech, Inc., 11020781 Canada Inc., and owner Robert James Duthie Nelson, admitted that their tool breached copyright by injecting new code into Bungie’s, thereby creating an unlicensed derivative work.

The defendants further conceded that their software circumvented technical measures in breach of the DMCA, but a $13.5 million damages award in Bungie’s favor didn’t mark the end of the lawsuit.

Documents handed over by Nelson enabled Bungie to identify Wallhax Senior Developer Patrick Schaufuss (Badger) in Germany and Denmark-based developer Daniel Larsen. After reaching an agreement with the plaintiff, Nelson and Schaufuss are now providing evidence in support of Bungie’s motion for default judgment against Larsen.

New Year, New Defendants

Late December, several defendants were summoned to appear or face default judgment.

They include Sebastiaan Juan Theodoor Cruden, aka “Luzypher” (Netherlands), Eddie Tran, aka “Sentient” (San Jose, US), John Doe #4, aka “Goodman” (Sichuan, China), Yunxuan Deng (Shanghai, China), Anthony Robinson aka “Rulezzgame” (Germany), Chenzhijie Chen, (Beijing, China), Dsoft (Denmark), and Marta Magalhaes (Portugal).

If there was any doubt over Bungie’s determination to see this lawsuit through to the bitter end, an avalanche of filings over the past few days settles that once and for all.

New declarations from experts and witnesses in support of Bungie’s lawsuit are heavily redacted. However, text left in the clear still manages to deliver powerful testimony that leaves precious room for maneuver.

To warm things up, here’s a starter: During the period Wallhax sold their Destiny 2 cheat, Bungie spent “a minimum of $2,000,000” on game security measures to counter cheating. In this lawsuit alone, Bungie has already incurred litigation costs in excess of $338,000.

Expert: Cheat Software Logged Sensitive User Data

Steven Guris is Director of Threat Investigation at cybersecurity firm Unit 221B . He’s an ethical hacker, an expert in video game cheats, and a Destiny 2 player with over 2,200 hours of logged gaming time.

According to his declaration, Guris and his team spent 21 hours analyzing the Wallhax Destiny 2 cheat. The image below shows Wallhax in action, but page after page of redacted text indicates many findings are being suppressed for security reasons.

Details relating to the mysterious Wallhax ‘logging function’ are mostly redacted too, but text left in the clear reveals a feature that users of the cheat should be made aware of – sooner rather than later.

Major Privacy Breach For Users of Wallhax

“Some of the logged processes are not stand-alone applications, but are found on browser tabs that the user had open on their machine,” Guris explains.

“In order to identify these tabs, the cheat must look at the name of every browser tab the user has opened every time the user launches the cheat.”

Guris goes on to reference a log file that “only contains 20,868 entries” while noting that the cheat software most likely performed a scan each and every time it ran on a user’s computer. Parents are likely to be alarmed at the findings detailed below.

From this low point, things somehow manage to get worse. One log entry references a browser tab called ‘patientportal.mhsgenesis.health.mil login’ while another carries the label ‘MHS GENESIS Patient Portal – COVID-19 Results.’

“MHS Genesis is the patient portal for the United States Department of Defense,” Guris writes. “I believe these log entries represent the cheat software’s logging of the browser windows containing MHS Genesis Patient Portal sessions, including health care information.

“Based on this information, it appears that the Wallhax cheat software was scanning the computers of, and logging data from, active duty military or Department of Defense personnel.”

From the text in the declaration that isn’t redacted, there’s no evidence to indicate that logging military personnel data was an explicit aim of the cheat, but in itself that’s unlikely to be of much comfort to users of the cheating software.

“In sum, the Wallhax cheat was fundamentally designed to breach private data spaces, evade security measures, and attempt to ensure that cheat users could continue to access Destiny 2 and achieve success against other Destiny 2 players based not on their own skill, but on the cheat software’s technology,” Guris concludes.

Badger’s Declaration in Support of Bungie

While it’s safe to assume that Patrick Schaufuss (Badger) filed his declaration of his own free will, albeit within the confines of his agreement with Bungie, the document bears the polish of a legal professional. As such, it devastates any defense Larsen would’ve had, if he’d actually tried to defend himself, which it appears he hasn’t.

Schaufuss says that the Wallhax business was a partnership consisting of him, Nelson and Larsen. The Wallhax software “exists for the one purpose and only one purpose” – to enable users to cheat in videogames, Destiny 2 included. Schaufuss says he left Wallhax in 2022 but Nelson is still paying towards his legal fees.

“When I first joined the Wallhax partnership in 2012, I was the primary software developer for the business,” Schaufuss writes.

“Larsen initially joined the partnership as a forum moderator and asked me to teach him programming and reverse engineering in lieu of payment. He was a good student and learned very quickly, and I continued to mentor him for the next three or four years.

“Reverse-engineering games is an essential part of Larsen’s cheat development process, and therefore his role at Wallhax,” the cheat developer adds.

“Larsen Understood That He was Violating Game Companies’ Rights”

The next several pages detailing the Wallhax software are completely redacted. Claims that Larsen willfully violated the DMCA are not.

“Larsen and I knew that the Software was wrongful and that it violated the DMCA. In fact, in an effort to taunt me about this litigation Larsen specifically told me that he was well aware that what we were doing violated the DMCA,” Schaufuss writes.

“At some point between 2016 and 2018, Larsen decided to make a cheat for Overwatch, which is a game from Activision/Blizzard. After Larsen made that cheat and Nelson began promoting it, Activision/Blizzard reached out to us and told us that they would sue us if we started selling it. Larsen’s reaction was, essentially, ‘Ha ha, try’.

“Nelson and I each signed agreements with Activision/Blizzard saying that we would not touch their games, but Larsen refused,” Schaufuss adds.

James Barker, Bungie’s Deputy General Counsel, also filed a declaration in support of Bungie’s motion for default judgment. Barker says that cheaters ruin the Destiny 2 experience and with 1,700 hours of gameplay under his belt, he can “viscerally understand the aggravation of encountering a cheat software user.”

Like Schaufuss before him, Nelson also filed a declaration in support of Bungie.

From the statement that many Wallhax customers “are based in the United States, and send us payment from the United States” to Larsen being aware of the lawsuit but refusing to hand over his copyrighted cheat code, exits were closed one after another.

The declarations referenced above are available here ( 1 , 2 , 3 , pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.