‘Destiny 2’ Developer Bungie Sues Fake YouTube Accounts Over Fraudulent Take-Downs Of Fan Videos

Videogame developer Bungie is suing fake Google accounts who were responsible for getting Destiny 2 related videos taken down from YouTube, citing “significant reputational and economic damage.” They also blame YouTube for its “easily gamed reporting system,” criticizing their “gaping security loophole” for being the primary reason for the issue.

Earlier this month, Destiny copyrighted videos, including fan videos who make their living from creating Destiny videos, started disappearing from the platform. At first, fans were outraged thinking Bungie was removing them even though their content had not changed. Then, Bungie’s own videos related to Destiny 2 started being removed. Bungie quickly confirmed that they were not behind the takedown.

“Bungie had to devote significant internal resources to addressing it and helping its players restore their videos and channels — an effort complicated by the fact that while YouTube has a form that allows anyone to claim to represent a copyright holder and issue copyright strikes, it has no dedicated mechanism for copyright holders who are being impersonated to let YouTube know about the DMCA fraud,” the lawsuit states.

They faulted YouTube for allowing an infringer to easily issue a takedown notification and making it much more difficult to fix the problem.

An additional major issue for Bungie included the fans.

“The level of connection and community that Bungie’s players share directly affects Bungie’s bottom line,” the suit added.

Even though the game is free, Bungie directly profits off of the expansions, in-game currency and Silver.

“Bungie brings this action to recover for the Doe Defendants’ tortious and illegal conduct, and, frankly, to demonstrate to anyone else stupid enough to volunteer as a Defendant by targeting Bungie’s community for a similar attack that they will be met by legal process,” Bungie said.