Bungie’s Claims Against Destiny Hackers Dismissed in Court

Bungie suffers quite the setback in its legal pursuit of a group of hackers who sold cheats to other Destiny 2 players after the case went to court.

While video games can provide players with spectacular visuals, immersive stories, and competitive thrills, at the end of the day they’re all made up of thousands of lines of code. That code can be vulnerable to hackers at times, leading to some players having unfair advantages. Players of competitive shooters such as Call of Duty: Warzone, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and Destiny 2 are almost used to hackers invading and ruining their games. Destiny 2 specifically has seen multiple cheats from removing players’ guns in PvP to reviving allies in the Trials of Osiris.

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Often, hackers who exploit the code of a given game will sell those cheats on through a website. Over the course of a few years, Destiny 2’s developer Bungie has fought back against cheating websites. Back in 2020, the company issued a cease and desist to a popular cheat website, and in 2021, the hacking website GatorCheats was targeted by both the Destiny 2 creators and Valorant developers.

The latest website Bungie is trying to take legal action against is known as AimJunkies. Bungie is claiming that AimJunkies was guilty of copyright and trademark infringement. The Destiny 2 cheat website though, was not willing to back down, as it argued that the software it used to hack the game was of its own work, not a copy of Bungie’s creation. The group of hackers then went on to argue that Bungie’s other claims should be kept out of court per clauses in the company’s own user license agreement.


US District Judge Thomas Zilly has largely agreed with AimJunkies’ claim, stating that Bungie’s evidence is lacking in terms of the cheating website’s copyright infringement. “Notably,” Zilly began. “Bungie has not pleaded any facts explaining how the cheat software constitutes an unauthorised copy of any of the copyrighted works identified in the complaint.” This does not mark a true win for AimJunkies however, as the website was still found to be breaching trademark by using the phrase “Destiny 2 Hacks.”

Zilly also ruled that Bungie’s other claims could be settled out of court. Recently, Bungie has had another issue with protecting its copyright. Rather than a hacking website be responsible for using the Destiny IP though, this occasion saw YouTubers see their videos taken down for playing the game’s music. Even Bungie’s own YouTube channels suffered because of these actions, causing confusion among Destiny 2 fans and its developers.


Destiny 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.


Source: Gamerant

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