Over the past several years, a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits has targeted alleged cheaters and cheat makers.

Several game companies including Take-Two Interactive and Epic Games have taken cheaters to court in the United States. More recently, American video game developer Bungie has been rather active as well.

Bungie is known for the Halo and Destiny series, which have millions of fans around the world. The popularity of these games also attracts cheaters and cheat sellers so in an attempt to stop them, Bungie has filed several lawsuits in US federal courts.

This strategy yielded some success last year when Elite Boss Tech accepted a loss by signing a consent judgment, agreeing to pay $13.5 million in copyright damages. The lawsuit against AimJunkies is another story, as that cheat seller is doing everything in its power to fight back .

Bungie vs. Veterancheats

Bungie’s case against cheat seller Veterancheats went in yet another direction. After the lawsuit was filed in 2021, very little happened. The site’s alleged operator, Romanian resident Mihai Claudiu-Florentin, didn’t answer the complaint so Bungie was left to proceed on its own.

Earlier this year, the lack of action prompted Bungie to request a default judgment for copyright infringement and the circumvention of Bungie’s technological protection measures under the DMCA. To compensate for this wrongdoing, the game company requested more than $12 million in damages and fees.

According to Bungie, Veterancheats sold several Destiny 2 cheats, including “Razor”, “HLBOT”, and “Render.” These pieces of software allowed “unskilled” and “unethical” players to gain an unfair advantage, effectively ruining the fun for everyone else.

“Cheat software negatively impacts the gaming experience of Bungie’s community of honest players who enjoy playing and winning fairly using skill and developed through practice,” Bungie wrote.

Court Awards Millions in Damages

This week, United States District Judge Tana Lin ruled on the motion, largely siding with Bungie. After concluding that the court has jurisdiction over the Romanian defendant, Judge Lin also agreed that a default judgment is warranted based on the evidence.

The court notes that Veterancheats’ violations of the DMCA were willful and that an award of up to $2,500 per
download of the VeteranCheats Hack is justified. Since Bungie actually asked for less than that, the damages request was granted.

“Bungie has asked for only $2,000 for each of the 5,848 downloads of the VeteranCheats Hack and the Court finds that this amount is appropriate. The Court will therefore enter default judgment in the amount of $11,696,000 for Claudiu-Florentin’s violations of the DMCA,” Judge Lin writes.

For circumvention violations under the DMCA, each cheat software download goes towards the final damages amount, which can be susbstantial. The same isn’t true for statutory copyright infringement damages, which are counted per copyright work, but in this case that was irrelevant.

Instead, Bungie requested actual copyright infringement damages based on the cheat sellers’ subscription revenue. The game company relied on data obtained from payment processor Stripe to calculate the final amount.

“Bungie has provided sufficient evidence to support this request, including accounting information from Stripe, as well as Barker’s declaration which explains the basis for the calculation. The Court therefore awards $146,662.28 in actual damages for the Copyright Act claim,” the Judge adds.

Finally, Judge Lin also granted more than $200k in attorneys’ fees and costs, which puts the total default judgment amount at a sizable $12,059,912.98.

Injunction Targets Domains, Reddit, Discord, and More

In addition to the substantial damages award, Judge Lin also issued a permanent injunction that prohibits Veterancheats and Claudiu-Florentin from selling cheats for Bungie’s games or engaging in any related copyright-infringing activities.

Veterancheats is also prohibited from using other services to promote or sell the cheats. Those include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Discord, GBATemp, Reddit, Telegram, Skype, WeChat, WhatsApp, Signal, and similar apps and services.

“Claudiu-Florentin is prohibited from using any social network, video sharing, or digital messaging accounts under their control to provide any content relating to the distribution, marketing, offering for sale, or promotion of the Wallhax cheat software..,” the order reads.

Even more valuable, perhaps, is that third parties, including but not limited to domain name registrars
or registries, are also prohibited from supporting these infringing and DMCA-violating activities. That means that the .com domain name of Veterancheats, which remains online at the time of writing, is at risk of being suspended if Bungie cheats are sold.

Worldwide

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the injunction isn’t just limited to the United States. It can be enforced in every country of the world where the defendant or the cheating operation has connections.

“This permanent injunction is binding against Claudiu-Florentin worldwide, without regard to the territorial scope of the specific intellectual property rights asserted in the Amended Complaint and may be enforced in any court of competent jurisdiction wherever Claudiu-Florentin or his assets may be found,” the order reads.

All in all, this is a significant win for Bungie on all fronts. The Veterancheats website remains online but that’s not necessarily a problem in this case, as the cheat seller previously removed the Destiny 2 cheats from sale.

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A copy of the default judgement and associated permanent injunction, issued by United States District Judge Tana Lin, is available here (pdf)

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

Over the past several years, several videogame companies have taken cheaters to court in the United States.

In 2021, American videogame companies Bungie and Ubisoft joined forces in a lawsuit against “Ring-1”, a developer and distributor of cheat software targeting Destiny 2, Rainbox Six Seige, and other popular titles.

Bungie and Ubisoft identified four defendants who allegedly ran the cheating business. Filed at a California federal court, their complaint named Andrew Thorpe (aka ‘Krypto’), Jonathan Aguedo (aka ‘Overpowered’), Wesam Mohammed (aka ‘Grizzly’), and Ahmad Mohammed as key players.

Three Settlements

Aguedo and the two Mohammeds were tracked down in the United States and eventually admitted their wrongdoing. This resulted in settlement agreements totaling $600,000 in damages.

Thorpe, a resident of the UK, was the only defendant who failed to respond to the allegations, despite being properly informed. In the absence of a formal defense, Bungie and Ubisoft asked the court to issue a default judgment.

According to the videogame companies, Mr. Thorpe was a “prominent” member of Ring-1 who, among other things, “ran” the group’s official website. This claim was corroborated by the testimony of one of the co-defendants.

Bungie and Ubisoft requested $2.2 million in damages, a figure that includes compensation for several claims, including copyright infringement and trafficking in circumvention devices.

Unrepresented defendants run the risk of evidence weighing in favor of the plaintiffs. In this case, however, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen took a more balanced approach.

Court Denies Default Judgement

After reviewing the arguments and evidence presented by the videogame companies, Judge Chen denied their motion for default judgment. This means that the fourth and final defendant won’t be required to pay any damages.

The key issue at stake is whether the California federal court has personal jurisdiction over the UK resident. Specifically, Bungie and Ubisoft were required to show that he was a key player who directed his actions at the United States.

In his order, Judge Chen first considers the role of the defendant, relying on the evidence provided by the game companies. This evidence failed to show that Mr. Thorpe was a prominent Ring-1 member.

“Mr. Thorpe is not an original developer of the software or an original participant in the Ring-1 enterprise, but only joined after Ring-1 had already attracted many users,” Judge Chen writes.

“His role at the Ring-1 enterprise appears to be akin to a customer service representative. For example, customers have asked him for information related to the Cheating Software such as its features, operations, and updates.”

Jurisdiction

Bungie and Ubisoft argued that the defendant’s actions were targeted at the U.S., based on the notion that the broader actions of Ring-1 can be attributed to him. That goes too far in this case, as the court fails to see him as a leader.

Co-defendant Mr. Agueda testified that Mr. Thorpe ran the Ring-1 website. However, Judge Chen believes that the term “run” is vague and is therefore insufficient to consider the defendant an alter ego for the entire Ring-1 group.

Instead, the court decided to evaluate whether Mr. Thorpe specifically directed his personal actions at the U.S., which would be sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction. Again, Judge Chen found the evidence unconvincing.

“First, contrary to what Plaintiffs argue, the fact that the two Plaintiffs are located in the United States does not mean that Mr. Thorpe has thereby targeted the United States,” Judge Chen writes.

Second, Mr. Thorpe may have assisted customers, but there is no evidence that any of those customers were based in the United States. More fundamentally, there is nothing to indicate that Mr. Thorpe reached out and solicited those customers. Rather, the evidence indicates that the customers reached out to him.

Insufficient Evidence

Judge Chen ultimately decided that there wasn’t enough evidence to conclude that Mr. Thorpe purposefully directed his activities at the United States. As such, the court doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over the UK resident.

That left no other option than to deny Bungie and Ubisoft’s motion for default judgment and the $2.2 million in compensation they requested.

“Without the requisite minimum contacts, the Court does not have specific personal jurisdiction over Thorpe pursuant to Rule 4(k)(2), and thus a default judgment is not warranted,” the order reads.

In a footnote, Judge Chen writes that the injunctions awarded against the other defendants – prohibiting the Ring-1 members from engaging in any infringing conduct going forward – also apply to Mr. Thorpe but notes that his court has no power to enforce compliance.

Whether Mr. Thorpe is still part of the operation is unknown but, despite the previous settlements, the Ring-1 continues to be online and publicly accessible to this day.

The ruling in this lawsuit stands in sharp contrast with the criminal conviction of Gary Bowser, who was a relatively low-level ‘salesperson’ of the Team-Xecuter ‘hacking’ group. Last year, a U.S. court sentenced the Canadian to 40 months in prison for that role.

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A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chan’s order, denying the motion for a default judgment, is available 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 2021, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the software.

AimJunkies denied the claims and argued that cheating isn’t against the law . In addition, it argued that the copyright infringement allegations were ungrounded because some of the referenced copyrights were registered well after the cheats were first made available.

Court Dismissed Bungie’s Copyright Claims

Last May, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies . The original complaint didn’t provide sufficient evidence for a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed any copyrights, the judge concluded.

This was bad news for Bungie, but the court allowed the game developer to amend its complaint, which it did. That copyright infringement dispute is still ongoing and on its way to a trial that’s expected to take place later this year.

In 2022, Judge Zilly referred several of the non-copyright-related complaints to arbitration, including allegations that AimJunkies’ cheats violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision and were illegally sold to third parties.

Arbitration Judge Sides with Bungie

The arbitration process was conducted behind the scenes, but Bungie shared the outcome with the Washington federal court a few days ago. In a resounding win for the developer, Bungie walked away with an award of $4.3 million in damages and fees.

The bulk of the award relates to DMCA-related damages. According to arbitration Judge Ronald Cox, the evidence makes it clear that AimJunkies and third-party developer James May bypassed Bungie’s technical protection measures in violation of the DMCA.

“May testified that on many occasions, he connected reverse engineering tools to the Destiny 2 process in order to reverse engineer it and develop a cheat for the game,” Judge Cox writes.

“He also testified that after being caught and banned by Bungie several times for doing so, he attempted various ways to bypass the bans and circumvent the protections Bungie had in place to prevent reverse engineering.”

All Liable for Circumvention

May is not an employee of AimJunkies or its parent company Phoenix Digital. However, the latter can be held liable; the reverse engineering was carried out to develop the cheating software, which was sold and profited from.

“Thus, the remaining respondents are liable for May’s violations. They are likewise liable for the circumvention by the many users of the cheats sold by Phoenix on the website,” Judge Cox writes.

The arbitrator concludes that the circumvention was malicious, which entitles Bungie to $2,500 per offense. Based on 102 violations, total damages amounted to $255,000.

In reaching this conclusion, the testimony of AimJunkies owner David Shaefer was disregarded. Judge Cox found his testimony non-credible, partly due to Shaefer substantially understating revenue from the sale of the cheats.

Trafficking

In addition to violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, the defendants were also found liable for trafficking in circumvention devices. Or put differently, selling and shipping the cheats.

Sales of the cheats and loader, which effectively bypassed Bungie’s copyright protections, amount to 1,361 copies in total.

“The evidence shows that Phoenix sold more than one thousand copies of the cheats. They also distributed more than one thousand copies of the cheat loader that was used to inject the cheats into the Destiny 2 process.

“Given respondents’ egregious and willful conduct, including their ongoing concealment of sales, Bungie is entitled to the full statutory damages available,” Judge Cox adds.

Trafficking violations resulted in a $3,402,500 award, and when added to damages for circumvention violations, an award of $3,657,500 covered all DMCA violations.

$4,396,222 and Forward

The arbitrator also sided with Bungie’s claims regarding breach of contract, tortious interference, consumer protection, and spoilation. As such, the game developer is entitled to attorneys’ fees and other awards.

In total, an award of $4,396,222 was handed to the game developer.

Last week, Bungie asked the federal court to accept this final award and approve an associated injunction, which prevents the AimJunkies defendants from engaging in any similar activities going forward.

In addition, Bungie is using its arbitration successes to defend against AimJunkies’s counterclaims in the ongoing copyright battle.

AimJunkies argued that by decompiling and reverse-engineering its cheat software, Bungie violated AimJunkies’ terms of service and breached the terms of its contract. Bungie says that the arbitration result counters AimJunkies’ claims since it found the software itself illegal.

“Phoenix Digital’s Terms of Service, which apply to the sale/license of Defendants’ Destiny 2 cheat software, are void because they are in violation of public policy and/or illegal,” Bungie countered in a filing last Friday.

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A copy of the arbitration Judge’s conclusions is available here (pdf) . Bungie asked the federal court to confirm this (pdf) and enter a judgment accordingly

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

Over the past several years, a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits has targeted alleged cheaters and cheat makers.

Several game companies including Take-Two Interactive and Epic Games have taken cheaters to court in the United States. More recently, American video game developer Bungie has been rather active as well.

Bungie is known for the Halo and Destiny series, which have millions of fans around the world. The popularity of these games also attracts cheaters and cheat sellers, including “Elite Boss Tech” and “AimJunkies.com.”

How these sellers have responded to legal pressure varies considerably. Earlier this year Elite Boss Tech accepted a loss by signing a consent judgment, agreeing to pay $13.5 million in copyright damages. AimJunkies, on the other hand, is doing everything in its power to fight back .

Bungie vs. Veterancheats

Bungie’s case against Veterancheats has gone in another direction. After the lawsuit was filed against the cheat seller in 2021, not much has happened. The site’s alleged operator, Romanian resident Mihai Claudiu-Florentin, didn’t answer the complaint in court.

A few days ago, this lack of action prompted Bungie to request a default judgment totaling roughly $12 million in damages for copyright infringement and circumventing Bungie’s technological protection measures.

According to Bungie, the defendant sold several Destiny 2 cheats, including “Razor”, “HLBOT”, and “Render.” These allowed “unskilled” and “unethical” players to gain an unfair advantage, effectively ruining the fun for everyone else.

“Cheat software negatively impacts the gaming experience of Bungie’s community of honest players who enjoy playing and winning fairly using skill and developed through practice,” Bungie writes.

It’s a sentiment shared by many affected gamers, and Bungie lists several instances of people publicly complaining about Destiny 2 cheaters.

Serious Money

Veterancheats remains online and is aware of the lawsuit. The cheat seller previously removed the Destiny 2 cheats from its site in the hope that would settle the matter. However, Bungie is pressing on.

The game company obtained subpoenas to request financial information from Coinbase, PayPal, and Stripe. The Stripe information was particularly useful as it revealed thousands of cheat sales, including 5,848 separate subscription transactions that could be linked to Destiny 2 cheats.

These transactions brought in roughly $146,000 in revenue, which Bungie demands as actual damages for copyright infringement. In addition, the game maker seeks $2,000 for each of the 5,848 sales for circumventing the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision – $11,696,000 in damages overall.

Adding attorneys fees to these two figures pushes total compensation above $12 million.

Serious Money

The damages are warranted for a variety of reasons, according to Bungie. The company has spent more than $2,000,000 on cheat mitigation while Veterancheats and Claudiu-Florentin willingly broke the law and then failed to respond to Bungie’s complaint.

Interestingly, Claudiu-Florentin did briefly communicate with the game maker’s legal team. When Bungie tried to get the transaction data from Stripe, Veterancheat’s operator offered to stop selling cheats going forward, if Bungie would stop pursuing the case.

Claudiu-Florentin instead pointed a finger at competing cheat sellers, who continued to offer similar software. In addition, he drew Bungie’s attention to the developer of the cheat.

“The one who should be sued is the developer of the product, not a small seller like me. Why they dont try to identify the developer of the product instead? ring-1,” Veterancheat’s operator wrote.

“I request a withdrawal of information request and if you accept, i will stop distributing the destiny 2 software (Skycheats,Battlelog,Privatecheatz has sold Destiny 2 software for more than 1 year and they did not got sued by Destiny 2,” he added.

This diversion attempt didn’t help, it appears, as Bungie continued with the case and now demands millions of dollars in compensation.

The court has yet to rule on the default judgment and damages request but without an official defense from Veterancheats, little stands in the way of a successful outcome for the game vendor.

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A copy of the motion for a default judgment against Veterancheats/Claudiu-Florentin and the associated memorandum is available here (pdf)

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

In 2021, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the Destiny 2 cheating software at the center of the complaint.

AimJunkies denied the claims and argued that cheating isn’t against the law . In addition, it refuted the copyright infringement allegations; these lacked substance and were ungrounded because some of the referenced copyrights were registered well after the cheats were first made available.

Court Dismissed Bungie’s Copyright Claims

In May 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies . The original complaint lacked sufficient evidence to support a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed any copyrights, the Judge concluded.

While this was a setback for Bungie, the court gave the company an opportunity to file a new complaint to address these shortcomings, which it did soon after.

In its amended complaint, the game developer added more copyright infringement details and shared more information on the roles of several key people that are also allegedly involved. They include James May, who Bungie describes as a third-party cheat developer.

Cheaters Countersue Bungie

In response, the AimJunkies defendants went on the offensive. They didn’t deny that the AimJunkies site offered ‘Destiny 2’ cheats in the past but rejected allegations that copyright law had been violated.

Instead, James May and the three managing members of Phoenix Digital turned the tables. Their countersuit against Bungie contains several hacking allegations and claims that the game company violated the DMCA by circumventing the cheat’s technological protection measures.

These initial counterclaims were dismissed after Bungie pointed out several flaws to the court. However, AimJunkies was allowed to amend its allegations to add missing details. This attempt was more successful.

‘Hacking’ and Theft Claims Can Proceed

Late last week, United States District Judge Thomas S. Zilly ruled that the hacking, theft, and contract breach allegations survive Bungie’s motion to dismiss so can proceed.

“May and Phoenix Digital have cured deficiencies the Court previously identified in its earlier Order […] and many of the arguments Bungie raises in its motion to dismiss would be more appropriately presented in a motion for summary judgment or at trial,” Judge Zilly writes.

The hacking and theft claims only apply to James May, who’s described as a third-party cheat developer. These allegations are grounded in a spreadsheet obtained during discovery and suggest that Bungie breached his computer without permission.

Bungie’s own privacy policy didn’t allow the company to access files on Mr. May’s personal computer surreptitiously, let alone download any of its contents. However, May believes this is what happened.

“On several occasions between October 2, 2019 and May 25, 2021 Bungie, Inc […] obtained information from personal files contained on Mr. Mays’ personal computer. Bungie did so by exceeding the authorization provided to it by the Bungie Privacy Policy.

“In particular, the reference in Exhibit D to the file path “g:\work files\”, directs to Mr. May’s external drive which contains proprietary technology and trade secrets known only to Mr. May. Mr. May holds copyrights in these materials…,” the counterclaim added.

By accessing the drive, the game company allegedly violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which can be seen as hacking. In addition to accessing the files, May also accuses Bungie of downloading them, which is seen as theft.

The alleged hacking and theft caused damage to May, as he spent dozens of hours reviewing potentially compromised files. May also had to purchase a new computer.

Points for AimJunkies

There is also positive news for AimJunkies’ parent company Phoenix Digital. Judge Zilly concludes that its contract breach claim can continue. AimJunkies argued that Bungie violated its terms of service by decompiling and reverse-engineering its cheat software.

Since these activities are expressly prohibited by AimJunkies’ terms of service, the cheat developers argue that amounts to a breach of contract.

AimJunkies previously filed hacking-related claims against Bungie, but since the company didn’t file an amended hacking-related counterclaim, that is no longer an issue.

DMCA Circumvention Counterclaims

Not all counterclaims survived Bungie’s motion to dismiss. Alleged violations of the DMCA due to circumvention of technological protection measures can’t continue.

According to Judge Zilly, there is no evidence that AimJunkies’ software had any technical copyright protection measures. As such, there is nothing to circumvent.

That said, the circumvention claims of third-party developer James May can continue. He accused Bungie of bypassing password and firewall technology to access his personal files, which means that there was something to circumvent.

Everything considered, plotting the future course of the case is difficult. A myriad of claims filed by both sides have rendered the case unpredictable, and with the parties apparently determined to keep fighting, further unexpected twists can’t be ruled out.

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The amended counterclaims and Bungie’s motion to dismiss can be found here (pdf) and here (pdf) . Judge Zilly’s order granting/dismissing various claims 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.

After more than two decades of use and abuse, the DMCA takedown notice has managed to make enemies on all sides.

Rightsholders decry the need to send millions of them, nobody likes receiving them, and people on both sides feel outraged when DMCA notices are used as a weapon.

And they are, on a daily basis, and in their thousands, with almost no repercussions for the overwhelming majority of perpetrators.

Bungie Fights Back

In March 2022, videogame giant Bungie decided to make an example of an unknown individual who was believed to have sent 96 fraudulent DMCA takedown notices to YouTube. Subsequent content removals were wrongfully attributed to Bungie and high-profile Destiny content creators felt let down. With the community in uproar, Bungie’s response was delivered by its legal team.

Among other things, Bungie’s $7.7m lawsuit demanded $150,000 in statutory damages for each fraudulent takedown notice, claiming that every time its content was taken down, the company’s right to authorize the public display and performance of its copyrighted works was violated.

When Bungie filed an amended complaint in June 2022, the company revealed that a sophisticated investigation had identified the alleged DMCA fraudster: Destiny gamer and Bungie customer Nicholas Minor, better known online as ‘Lord Nazos’.

Six Months Later…

In common with many similar lawsuits carrying multi-million dollar claims, public excitement surrounding the Bungie/Minor case was soon displaced by routine court filings and dramas elsewhere. A joint status report and discovery plan filed mid-November lacked fireworks and little hope of a settlement.

“Plaintiff spent considerable resources addressing the community outcry and investigating the fraudulent takedowns, eventually identifying Defendant as the person issuing the takedowns,” Bungie informed the court.

“[P]laintiff pled six causes of action: fraudulent notice under §512(f) of the DMCA, false designation of origin under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a), copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501 et seq, business defamation, violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act under RCW 19.86.020, and breach of contract.”

The statement from Minor was brief. He denied engaging in willful conduct or bad faith as alleged in the amended complaint, and then denied almost everything else too.

“Defendant disputes Bungie’s contentions that he submitted knowingly false DMCA notices or counternotices, that he infringed Bungie’s copyrighted works or that there is a factual or legal basis for an infringement suit for any infringement that was the subject of a DMCA notice,” Minor’s statement reads.

“Bungie’s claims for false designation of origin, business defamation and violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Acts are legally and factually inapplicable to this case.”

The Long Haul Ahead

The deadline for joining additional parties to the case expired a few days ago without any being added. January 6, 2023, marks the deadline for amended pleadings and on September 18, 2023, expert witness reports are due.

Motions related to discovery must be filed by October 18, 2023, and discovery itself must be completed by November 17, 2023. Any motions to dismiss some or even all of the claims are due a month later, on December 18, 2023. Or to put things another way, almost a whole year from now.

If the parties fail to reach a settlement, the case will go to a jury trial. The date set by the court is April 15, 2024, and the trial itself is expected to last between three and five days.

A win is always a win, but beyond that, it’s hard to see any benefit for either side. By April 2024, the reasons for the lawsuit will be long forgotten and if DMCA notices are still as relevant as they are today, they’ll still be abused to disappear content, for whatever reason prevails on that particular day.

The status report and order setting trial date can be found here and here (pdf)

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

A lawsuit filed in 2021 targeting businesses, owners and individuals behind the Wallhax, SecureAC, SecureCheats and CODHax platforms, is just a small part of a larger Bungie campaign.

Faced with growing numbers of cheaters in its online games, Bungie filed several lawsuits in the U.S. They sent the clearest possible message that similar behavior can have serious consequences.

For regular gamers honing innovative strategies to triumph within the parameters of clearly defined rulesets, elimination of cheaters can’t come soon enough.

Filed in 2021 , the lawsuit against Wallax identified some defendants by name and others by their online handles. All faced allegations of copyright infringement, violations of the DMCA’s anti-cicumvention provisions, RICO violations, conspiracy, plus sundry other charges

In June 200, Robert Nelson and two companies under his control admitted copyright infringement after violating Bungie’s copyrights and injecting code into Destiny 2, thereby creating unlicensed derivative works. Bungie’s damages award was $13.5m .

Information provided by Nelson enabled Bungie to pursue developer Daniel Larsen in Denmark, and when he failed to appear, Bungie obtained an entry of default. Information also led Bungie to Germany where ‘Badger’ was identified as Patrick Schaufuss. He also agreed to settle by cooperating with Bungie.

Amended Complaint Unmasks More Defendants, More Details

Filed this week in a Washington District Court, Bungie’s first amended complaint identifies former Doe defendants ‘Luzypher’, ‘Yimosecai’, ‘Rulezzgame’, ‘Sentinent’, ‘CHENZHIJIE402’, and ‘Mindbender’ (aka ‘Bluegirl’), by their real names.

It also provides additional detail on some of the other defendants, including the entity ‘Dsoft CVR36454303’.

Daniel Larsen / Dsoft CVR36454303

Previously alleged to be just the administrator of Wallhax, Larsen is now described as the owner. Working under the pseudonym ‘Gokke’, it’s alleged he developed the code framework for the Wallhax cheat and was involved in designing, coding, updating and maintaining cheats for Destiny 2.

“Larsen and the other partners in the Wallhax business share in its profits and losses and engage in joint decision-making, with Larsen having particular say in matters in his area of expertise (software engineering),” Bungie writes.

“Defendant DSoft, registered with the Danish Business Authority under CVR 37454303, (‘DSoft’) is Larsen’s registered sole proprietorship, with a principal place of business located at [redacted address] in Denmark.”

Bungie says the Dsoft corporate entity was used to conduct business and accept funds relating to the Wallhax cheating operation.

Other Targets Identified

According to Bungie, ‘Luzypher’ is a Wallhax senior support specialist and moderator of the Wallhax forums. The company already knew that ‘Luzypher’ lives in the Netherlands but now identify him as Sebastiaan Juan Theodoor Cruden along with a specific address in a central region of the country.

Previously just a ‘Doe’ defendant, Bungie has added ‘Goodman’ to its complaint. The developer still doesn’t know his name but believes he’s in Sichuan, China, from where he sells Wallhax cheats and shares revenue with other Wallhax defendants. Chenzhijie Chen (aka chenzhiji402) of Shangai, China, faces identical allegations.

The defendant previously known as ‘Yimosecai’ is now identified as Yunxuan Deng of Shangai, China. Together with Eddie Tran (aka Sentient) of California, Anthony Robinson (aka Rulezzgame) of Germany, and Marta Magalhaes (Mindbender/Blue Girl) of Portugal, all stand accused of reselling Wallhax cheats.

Bungie frames their actions rather more elaborately, describing the defendants and others yet to be identified as complicit in a racketeering exercise. Other previously named defendants, including ‘Riddell’ and ‘piskubi93’, are absent from the amended complaint but for reasons not cited in the complaint.

Escalation Strategy

At least from the information available in court documents, it seems that Bungie is using compliant defendants (i.e those who have agreed to settle) as a means to identify others. That’s nothing out of the ordinary and can prove extremely effective.

As an abstract example unrelated to this case, if we take Defendant 1 as the main target in a civil action, he may know a lot about partner defendant 2, so if Defendant 1 starts to cooperate under threat of financial ruin, Defendant 2 is rendered vulnerable.

Lower players, let’s call them Defendants 6 and 7, may be happy to share personal information with each other, feeling they’re largely unimportant. But if Defendant 4 knows either and happens to be friendly with Defendant 3, none of the group are secure if Defendant 2 throws in the towel.

Defendant 5, meanwhile, may feel that settling is the only option because apparently everyone else has. Pressure to settle may not always work though, especially in far-off lands with different legal standards and potentially uncooperative governments.

The amended complaint can be found here (pdf)

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