Bungie has developed a lot of original IPs over the last couple of decades, but its recent projects mostly revolve around Destiny, and a great deal of attention has been paid to its dedicated community.
So the fact that the developer seemed to have begun taking down content belonging to some of the most prolific members of its community was quite alarming.
The Bungie team resolved the issue within a couple of days, stating that there was a rogue element involved and the issue was not related to their team.
A rogue element has since come to light with the announcement that these takedowns were orchestrated as a result of Nicholas Minor, the owner of the Lord Nazo YouTube channel, who is now facing litigation for his actions against Destiny content creators.
As soon as Bungie clarified that its IP protection service, CSC Global, had nothing to do with the wave of copyright takedowns, it wasn't too long before the perpetrator was identified.
According to Bungie, Nicholas Minor's actions were in response to a copyright takedown he was officially issued for posting some Destiny soundtracks online. As Minor's uploads were being removed, he set up a series of false email accounts that resembled CSC Global's email accounts and began sending DMCAs to other YouTubers, including Aztecross and MyNameIsByf.
In continuation of Bungie's recent litigation against YouTube accounts responsible for the copyright takedown wave, Bungie is now suing these accounts. In any case, Minor has now been identified as the source of the incident, which Bungie stated resulted in 'nearly incalculable damage' to its otherwise open, approachable community image.
Bungie has therefore filed legal action, specifically seeking $7.6 million in damages for the 96 takedowns he had issued on behalf of the company.
Destiny developer Bungie enjoys joking around with its community, while many individual developers interact with members weekly. The lawsuit might appear to be an outright contrast to Bungie's normal behavior, but it appears that Bungie is retaliating due primarily to the fact that Minor tried to undermine Bungie's image of friendly disposition in any way that he could.
Bungie's communications efforts with the community aren't always pleasant and productive, it's worth mentioning. Due to some of the tweets that a developer made about the Twilight Garrison incident in Destiny 2, Destiny community members harassed him.
In the aftermath, the developer who broke the Twitter account closed it down after he had opened a public discourse on game balance changes for months ahead of the incident, driving a wedge between Bungie fans and the developer.
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