Bungie hits YouTuber with a $7.6 million lawsuit for fake DMCA claims
Bungie is suing a Destiny2 YouTuber who allegedly struck back at DMCA takedowns leveled on his account by filing false DMCA claims, on Bungie’s behalf, against other streamers and the studio itself. Bungie’s lawsuit, filed in federal court on Wednesday, seeks at least $7.6 million in damages.
The complaint alleges that Nicholas Minor, who broadcasted under the handle Lord Nazo, created two fake Gmail addresses impersonating staff of CSC Global, a copyright management firm representing Bungie. The lawsuit says Lord Nazo used those addresses in February to send YouTube 96 takedown demands, citing the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The takedowns involved videos posted by YouTubers My Name is Byf (who has 974,000 subscribers); Aztecross (615,000 subscribers) and Bungie’s own YouTube account. “Minor’s attack sent shockwaves through the Destinycommunity,” the complaint said. “Content creators described the chilling effect the false takedowns had on their own work, saying, ‘I’m scared to make new Destiny videos, let alone keep the ones I’ve already made up.’”
Under the DMCA, companies such as YouTube are obligated to remove user-published content that infringes a copyright held by another. Such a broad mandate has enabled abuse of the statute’s provisions, with some filing DMCA declarations to YouTube and elsewhere to thwart business rivals or social media adversaries.
Bungie’s complaint alleges that Minor “exploit[ed] the hole in YouTube’s DMCA-process security that allows anyone at all to claim to be representing a rights holder for purposes of issuing a takedown, with no real safeguards against fraud.”
Bungie said Minor mounted his retaliatory campaign after he himself was served with DMCA takedown demands in
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