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Destiny 2 cheat seller will pay Bungie $4.3 mil in legal dispute

Bungie has won a legal dispute against Destiny 2 cheat maker AimJunkies for copyright and trademark infringement, as well as DMCA-related damages.

TJ Denzer

February 21, 2023 3:50 PM

Image via Bungie

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Bungie won a major legal victory today as the Destiny 2 developer comes out of a legal dispute $4.3 million USD ahead after taking a cheat maker to court. AimJunkies has been creating and selling cheat programs for Destiny 2 for a long time and was taken to court by Bungie in 2021 for trademark, DMCA, and copyright infringement. This week, a federal judge ruled that AimJunkies must pay the aforementioned amount to Bungie for these and other legal damages.

Washington federal court Judge Ronald Cox announced a decision on the Bungie v AimJunkies case filed on February 16, 2023, as reported by TorrentFreak. Judge Cox found evidence showed that third-party developer James May bypassed Bungie’s software protection and violated the company’s DMCA in doing so to create cheat software for AimJunkies

“May testified that on many occasions, he connected reverse engineering tools to the Destiny 2 process in order to reverse engineer it and develop a cheat for the game,” Judge Cox wrote in his decision. “He also testified that after being caught and banned by Bungie several times for doing so, he attempted various ways to bypass the bans and circumvent the protections Bungie had in place to prevent reverse engineering.”

Judge Cox went on to say that AimJunkies and its parent company Phoenix Digital was the clear benefactor and profited from using May’s work to sell cheats for Destiny 2, which leaves Phoenix Digital liable in the lawsuit. It also hurts AimJunkies’ countersuit against Bungie in which the cheat developer alleged that Bungie accessed private info to build its case in the suit.

With the cheat maker already forced to pay damages of $4.3 million to Bungie, it remains to be seen how much further Bungie’s legal battle with AimJunkies and Phoenix Digital will go. Stay tuned as we continue to follow for further updates and information.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.