ign Cheat Distributor to Pay Bungie $13.5 Million

[UltraMega]

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A company that develops cheat codes for Destiny 2 has agreed to pay Bungie $13.5 million in damages in a move that will end a copyright infringement lawsuit.

The company has also agreed to a permanent injunction against the creation of any new cheating software for Destiny 2 or any other Bungie game.

 

As seen in court documents and a report from TorrentFreak, Bungie accused Canadian cheats company Elite Boss Tech of violating Destiny 2’s user agreement with its software, as well as costing the developer “exorbitant amounts of money” in developing anti-cheat technology. Bungie also noted that Elite Boss Tech’s software disrupted player experiences and damaged Destiny 2’s reputation, which in turn threatened the game’s commercial viability.

Destiny 2 Cheat Distributor Agrees To Pay Bungie $13.5 Million - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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A company that distributed Destiny 2 cheats has agreed to pay Bungie $13.5m in damages following a lawsuit.

 

 

Rare to see these companies face consequences for this kind of thing as far as I know. 

[Diffident]

I don't see how "copyright infringement" applies if the cheat uses no shared code...other than calling it a "Destiny 2 Cheat".....like how stores have "Super Bowl" sales but are forced to call them "Big Game" sales.

 

The IGN article doesn't mention that there was a claim of violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a) and (b)) which deals with Circumvention of copyright protection systems....unless the cheat includes a crack, it doesn't circumvent copyright protection.    Bungie claims that the cheats inject code into Destiny 2’s copyrighted code, creating an unlicensed derivative work.  Isn't that what game mods do?

[UltraMega]

2 hours ago, Diffident said:

I don't see how "copyright infringement" applies if the cheat uses no shared code...other than calling it a "Destiny 2 Cheat".....like how stores have "Super Bowl" sales but are forced to call them "Big Game" sales.

 

The IGN article doesn't mention that there was a claim of violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a) and (b)) which deals with Circumvention of copyright protection systems....unless the cheat includes a crack, it doesn't circumvent copyright protection.    Bungie claims that the cheats inject code into Destiny 2’s copyrighted code, creating an unlicensed derivative work.  Isn't that what game mods do?

Even though the article doesn't use the term "settlement", this sounds like a settlement. It seems the cheat company may have decided to pay to end the lawsuit to avoid the potential for much higher fines. 

[Diffident]

21 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Even though the article doesn't use the term "settlement", this sounds like a settlement. It seems the cheat company may have decided to pay to end the lawsuit to avoid the potential for much higher fines. 

 

It was a settlement, from the original article linked in the IGN article.

 

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The parties were as far apart as ever and the lawsuit seemed to be heading towards trial. This week, however, news of consensus appeared in the form of a stipulated motion asking the court to enter a consent judgment to end Bungie’s legal action.