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Bungie has filed a lawsuit against several individuals for issuing false copyright takedown notices on Destiny 2 YouTube videos over the past month.
A number of Destiny 2 videos were hit by a spate of false copyright claims over the past month. As reported by Kotaku, the videos included gameplay and soundtrack videos from prominent content creators and even Bungie themselves. Understandably, the community was worried that the studio was changing their content maker guidelines, which Bungie denied via Twitter. It said “These actions are NOT being taken at the request of Bungie or our partners. Please standby for future updates.”
Now, as reported by TorrentFreak (via Kotaku) Bungie is now taking those responsible to court. In a lawsuit that was filed to the Washington Court late last week, ten “John Does” have been accused of sending abusive notices under the DLCA and several counts of trademark abuse. The suit says the accused have disrupted Bungie’s player community, and caused the recently-acquired-by PlayStation studio “nearly incalculable damage” as a result.
Bungie even went so far as to call out YouTube’s DMCA processes itself, for allowing the takedowns to happen. The studio’s lawyers claim the notices were allowed to be sent due to “a hole in YouTube’s DMCA-process security”. These holes, it says, allows “any person, anywhere in the world, can issue takedown notices on behalf of any rights holder, anywhere”.
The company doesn’t know the exact identities of those who sent the notices just yet. However, it’s lawyers intends to use the full force of the law to find out, including DMCA subpoenas. The company will seek “damages and injunctive relief” to the tune of $150,000 for each fraudulent takedown notice.
While Bungie declined to comment on the pending lawsuit, YouTube issued its own statement to Kotaku. “We take abuse of our copyright takedown process seriously and terminate tens of thousands of accounts every year for violating our policies, which prohibit submitting false information in a takedown request. We’ll continue our work to prevent abuse of our systems, and we’re committed to taking appropriate action against those who knowingly misuse our tools.”
