Bungie, YouTuber Settle Lawsuit Over Fraudulent DMCA Takedowns For YouTube Videos
from the takedown-shakedown dept
Almost exactly two years ago, we discussed a strange story in which video game publisher Bungie sued a bunch of John Does specifically for inputting fraudulent DMCA takedown claims on YouTube videos that contained Bungie content. Those notices purported to be from Bungie in some cases, but even Bungie’s own YouTube channel was hit by some of them as well. Later on, Bungie unmasked one of the Does as YouTuber Lord Nazo, real name Nicholas Minor, as one of the perpetrators of these takedown notices. In those discussions, we mentioned that while Bungie will come out looking like the good guy here if its claims were correct, the real story here is just how wide open for abuse YouTube’s DMCA takedown process is.
Well, it was recently announced that Bungie and Minor settled the lawsuit and Minor revealed why he had done all of this.
In a dramatic turn of events, the legal battle between gaming giant Bungie Inc. and online gamer Nicholas Minor, famously known as Lord Nazo, has reached a surprising conclusion. After accusations of false copyright infringement, the two parties have finally settled, bringing an end to the intense courtroom drama that has captivated the gaming community.
During the legal proceedings, Minor admitted to creating a phony email address and submitting the video removal requests. His actions were reportedly motivated by a desire to highlight the lack of transparency in YouTube’s takedown process, following the removal of one of his own videos. This revelation added a layer of complexity to the case, shedding light on the broader issues surrounding online content moderation.
Minor’s actions can’t be justified by this motivation, of course, but it’s hard to argue he didn’t effectively make his point with all of this. Sure, he got caught and ostensibly is going to suffer some measure of punishment for his actions, but that’s because Bungie was his target and Bungie has the resources to force this sort of action. Think about all the other individual or smaller entities out there that suffer from these same fraudulent-type actions that don’t have the resources to fight back, or don’t want to bother doing so. In those cases the bad actors get away with their bad actions and none of us ever even hear about it.
Even for those larger entities, navigating all of this isn’t easy.
Bungie’s lawsuit underscored the challenges faced by content creators and gaming companies in navigating the intricacies of copyright law and online platforms’ policies. The false infringement complaints not only disrupted Bungie’s community of online gamers but also prompted a reevaluation of YouTube’s takedown procedures. The resolution of this case may set a precedent for future disputes involving copyright infringement and online content moderation.
And to its credit, Bungie said at the start of its legal action that YouTube’s DMCA process doesn’t sufficiently protect for this kind of fraudulent behavior. I have yet to hear of any massive changes made by YouTube as a result of this instance and others like it.
So for today, the status quo remains. But it certainly shouldn’t long term.
Filed Under: copyfraud, copyright, dmca, lord nazo, nicholas minor
Companies: bungie, youtube
Comments on “Bungie, YouTuber Settle Lawsuit Over Fraudulent DMCA Takedowns For YouTube Videos”
anyone buying this excuse?
sure
so BottomLiine:
Federal Copyright law is stupid
YouTube/Google DMCA policy is stupid
thus, the real guilty parties have now been identified
Is there a moral? …two wrongs do make a right?
And realistically, it’s hard to imagine Bungie pushing YouTube for this sort of change. The truth is that copyright holders benefit from YouTube being overly cautious with reports, even fraudulent kinds.
If this case was about DMCA takedowns being made about YouTube videos discussing cheats and codes, Bungie would likely have no issue with notices being fired left and right, and even demand for YouTube to take preemptive “notice and staydown” action.
The truth is that copyright-types have absolutely no problem with resorting to fraud to enforce copyright, up until it personally inconveniences them.
Re:
As a member of the Destiny community, the community feedback initially was confusion because Bungie actually is the kind of company that pushes for YouTube to fix this, and the sudden takedown of all of videos (shortly after Sony bought them) caused them to take a huge PR hit from their fan base. So yeah, they usually do fight on the right side of this stuff
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I don’t know, mate. I’m not sure I trust a company that uses copyright law to go after cheat programmers.
Google won’t be changing their DMCA process until it hits them in the pocketbook.
The DMCA is flawed, but I really don’t trust Congress to make it better instead of worse if they touch it.
But if I did, my wish list would include:
We could go farther, but these changes should prevent the worst abuses.
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Yes, very rational — but neither Congress nor Google give a schitt, as you indirectly noted
Remember when..?
When the DMCA was first tabled, the argument was that takedown notices would have to be legally sworn statements to oblige the host site to follow through; thus anyone filing a false takedown notice would be liable for perjury. Obviously, that has never happened. False notices are par for the course nowadays. Maybe, we need to get back to that.
I tend to believe Minor’s motivation, even if his move was stupid and probably illegal.
“Minor’s actions can’t be justified by this motivation, of course, but it’s hard to argue he didn’t effectively make his point with all of this.”
A person asked of me, Why in hell are the protestors causing damage?
I suggested 2 things to them. #1. there are those that want to involve the Cops to Stop the protest. #2 Is the protestors TRYING to get people tp pay attention. To see what they are trying to TELL US.
Good experiment, but DID it help anything.
He should face the exact same punishments corporations who make faulty claims face.
Youtube didn't suffer. There will be no change.
The DMCA process worked exactly as intended. Youtube did not suffer in the least. There is zero reason for Youtube to change their content moderation process in regards to their DMCA process. They won’t be paying fines or court fees.
Bungie, a company with the resources to take a smaller entity to court won the case. Unless they chose to be generous, they almost certainly got their court fees covered. That has got to be in the tens of thousands at least.
The little guy lost. This time the odd twist was that the little guy was the one sending false DMCA takedowns but he only lost because he went after a company. If he had been a company being paid to issue false DMCA takedowns, it would have been a business expense and nothing would have changed for them.
The entire system is meant to give US corporations a way to suppress speech they don’t like and it’s working exactly as intended.
Nothing will change.
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defeatist
Re: Re:
Defeatist, or pragmatic?
I don’t inherently disagree with any of the observations of the OP. YouTube is not incentivized to update their policies or be a little less heavyhanded with managing video takedowns. YouTube has been sued by record labels because YouTube didn’t take down music videos that the record labels put up themselves. It’s not surprising that YouTube, or any hosting platform, would prefer to err on the side of caution.
Bungie is a company that benefits as much from heavyhanded IP law enforcement as it loses. To wit, their attempts to sue 14 year olds for programming cheat codes for their games. They might have been the victim of wrongful DMCA takedowns in this case, but any sort of policy to rectify that would require some reduction in “notice and takedown” or other enforcement efforts. Which is something that no copyright holder wants. To them, anything that makes copyright enforcement less immediate is a victory for pirates, and must be avoided at all costs.
And companies who have been hired for the sole purposes of filing DMCA notices of questionable quality have very little to lose. Even in countries like Sweden where such notices and practices are frowned on by judges, the companies doling these notices out – and the copyright holders who hire them – have not been penalized for this at all.
Until these copyright abusers have their feet held to the fire, it’s doubtful that much will change for the better.