Bungie Sues Man Who Issued Fake Destiny 2 DMCA Takedowns For $7.6m

ign.com:

Back in March 2022, Destiny 2 YouTubers were hit with fake DMCA takedowns. Now, Bungie has found the culprit… and it’s on a warpath worth as much as $7.6 million.

A lawsuit filed by Bungie yesterday claims that Nicholas Minor, a YouTuber going by the name Lord Nazo, is responsible for the fake DMCA notices, issuing them to fellow YouTubers after he himself was hit with a real DMCA notice from Bungie.

“Ninety-six times, Minor sent DMCA takedown notices purportedly on behalf of Bungie,” the developer explained. “[He identified] himself as Bungie’s ‘brand protection’ vendor in order to have YouTube instruct innocent creators to delete their Destiny 2 videos or face copyright strikes, disrupting Bungie’s community of players, streamers, and fans.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, it looks as though Lord Nazo was heavily involved in community discussions surrounding the DMCA takedowns, which were at the time, assumed to be from Bungie.

“All the while, ‘Lord Nazo’ was taking part in the community discussion of ‘Bungie’s’ takedowns, spreading disinformation,” the studio said. “This caused Bungie significant reputational and economic damage, for obvious reasons.”

Minor’s original (and real) DMCA notice was issued by Bungie after he uploaded the soundtrack for the Destiny expansion The Taken King to his YouTube channel. Minor allegedly refused to remove his videos, leaving them online until they were eventually removed by YouTube in January. Minor allegedly retaliated by registering a new Gmail address, designed to mimic the email addresses of employees of CSC Global, the company who enforces Bungie's copyright. He then began issuing fake DMCA notices to Destiny 2 creators.

“The Destiny community was bewildered and upset, believing that