Bungie sues Destiny YouTuber for sowing chaos with fake copyright strikes
Bungie has sued a Destiny player who allegedly filed dozens of fake copyright strikes in its name. The lawsuit, covered by TheGamePost, says California YouTube creator Nick Minor turned a single Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice into 96 fraudulent claims against other YouTubers.
The complaint claims Bungie “brand protection” contractor CSC Global sent Minor a legitimate copyright notice in December 2021, asking him to remove music from the soundtrack of Destiny expansion The Taken King. Minor allegedly responded by creating a Gmail account that mimicked the CSC one and then filing similar requests with a bevy of other YouTube accounts — even hitting an official Bungie account. He identified himself as a CSC representative and demanded the accounts remove videos or face YouTube copyright strikes.
Meanwhile, under his YouTube alias Lord Nazo, Minor apparently ran what Bungie calls a “disinformation” campaign against the studio. It claims he spread reports about rampant copyright strikes, falsely blamed Bungie for overaggressive enforcement, and distributed a “manifesto” that was “designed to sow confusion” over the legitimacy of all Bungie DMCA requests. (In an editorial aside, it says the manifesto “reads like a hackneyed ‘look what you made me do’ letter from the serial killer in a bad novel.”) It quotes Destiny community members describing the takedowns as “heartbreaking” and “horrible,” saying the notices — which could have led to an account removal, if repeated — made them afraid to post more videos.
“Ninety-six times, Minor sent DMCA takedown notices purportedly on behalf of Bungie, identifying himself as Bungie’s ‘Brand Protection’ vendor in order to have YouTube instruct innocent creators to
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