Bungie Wins $4.3 Million In Lawsuit Against Destiny 2 Cheat Seller AimJunkies

By now, we know that Bungie isn’t afraid to take people to court over Destiny 2, particularly when said people are third-party developers creating and selling cheat for the game. Two years ago, they filed a suit against AimJunkies and its parent company, Phoenix Digital, claiming copyright infringement. The copyright portion didn’t exactly fly and the judge dismissed some of the claims stating that Bungie hadn’t proven how cheat software could be an “unauthorized copy” of the game. The judge did agree, however, to allow the claims that the software violated anti-circumvention rules set forth in the DMCA. That portion of the lawsuit went forward.

According to a report on Torrentfreak, that decision worked out pretty well for Bungie as they were found to have “bypassed Bungie’s technical protection measure in violation of the DMCA”. These findings were due, in part, to third-party cheat developer James May’s testimony that he used reverse engineering tools to develop cheats for the game. He also admitted that once he’s been caught and banned – several times – he tried several ways to bypass those bans and get around the protections Bungie had put in place to stop reverse engineering. As a result, the final judgment was for AimJunkies to pay Bungie $4.3 million in damages and fees.

Interestingly, despite the fact that May isn’t actually employed by AimJunkies or its parent company, they’re still able to be held responsible as May’s actions were used to develop the software, which AimJunkies then sold. They’re also being held responsible for other cheats sold on their site – to the tune of $2,500 per offense. A total of 102 violations were listed, bringing the total to $255,000. The bulk of the $4.3 million comes from “trafficking in circumvention devices”. For each instance of this, they were ordered to pay $2,500 in damages – resulting in a total of $3,402,500 for 1,361 violations. Of course, the company was also ordered to pay Bungie’s attorney fees and related expenses.