‘Destiny 2’ DLC Suddenly Results In Copyright Strikes For Streamers

from the oops dept

We haven’t always spoken in glowing terms about Bungie, the game studio behind the Destiny franchise. That being said, in more recent days, Bungie has also taken some very positive steps when it comes to protecting its fans from copyright takedown abuse, while also highlighting for the record that the DMCA takedown process employed by streaming sites absolutely sucks out loud. So, when it comes to how Bungie generally behaves on matters of intellectual property, it’s kinds of like an annoying Facebook relationship status: it’s complicated.

Well, the Destiny 2 streaming community is getting hit with more copyright issues, this time over on Twitch. It appears that anyone who is streaming some recently released DLC for the game is finding their streams getting muted due to the game’s soundtrack.

Apparently, these copyright strikes are a result of the in-game music, and streamers on Twitch are getting muted as a result of this. Some users have even received repeated notifications from Twitch after instances of copyrighted audio were found in their VODs. It is believed that this was never the case with the previous streams and has only occurred with the new DLCs.

Now, several of those streamers have pushed back on Twitch, indicating that they have never had a problem streaming Destiny games in the past. Twitch responded to several of them with a confirmation that copyrighted music was being played during their streams and that that was the reason for the mute.

The problem is that the Destiny team apparently didn’t intend for any of this to be happening.

As of the time of this writing, the cause of all of this hasn’t been publicly identified, nor a fix for it issued. But it seems pretty clear based on the Destiny team’s response and how it has handled streaming for its games previously that this wasn’t intended.

Which sucks! And highlights again that, even with the best of intentions, enforcing copyright automagically at scale is, well, impossible.

Filed Under: copyright, destiny, dlc, dmca, streaming
Companies: bungie, twitch

Bungie Unmasks One Of The ‘Does’ It Sued For Fraudulent YouTube Takedowns

from the oops dept

Back in March of this year, we discussed a somewhat odd story involving a bunch of DMCA takedowns for YouTube videos that included fan-content mixed with Destiny 2 music or footage. DMCA takedowns aren’t themselves strange, but in this case the makers of the game, Bungie Inc., publicly stated that it was aware of the takedowns but insisted it wasn’t them or their enforcement partner, CSC. Some of Bungie’s own official content had also been hit with claims, bolstering its defense somewhat, though it certainly isn’t unheard of for official content to accidentally get DMCA’d. Further solidifying that this wasn’t actually Bungie or CSC, however, occurred when Bungie went ahead and filed a lawsuit against 10 John Does over all of this.

Well, at least one of those Does has now been unmasked, as YouTube assisted Bungie by providing his IP address. That would be Nicholas Minor, who goes as Lord Nazo on YouTube. Bungie has amended its lawsuit naming him specifically, though it is unclear if Bungie is accusing Minor of filing all of the fraudulent takedowns. Ironically, it appears that Minor took these actions after becoming angry that Bungie and CSC took down his YouTube videos that contained Destiny 2 game music.

Lord Nazo, real name Nicholas Minor, apparently sought revenge on the development studio after CSC Global, which works in conjunction with Bungie as a brand protector, issued a number of takedown notices to him for uploading the Destiny soundtracks to his channel. The videos were uploaded in December 2021, and removed by YouTube a month later.

As reported by The Game Post, Minor allegedly created two fake Gmail accounts under the pseudonyms Jeremy Wiland and Damien Reynolds, posing as employees of CSC. He then used the accounts to issue DMCA strikes against popular Destiny YouTubers such as My Name Is Byf and Promethean, and additionally against Bungie’s own YouTube channel.

More is alleged, including that Minor used those accounts to contact Bungie directly and threaten them somewhat vaguely. For its part, Bungie is asking for a whopping $7.6 million as a result of all of this. Based on the filing for the suit, Bungie looks like it knows what it’s talking about.

Now let’s discuss briefly how this will all get talked about. If Minor did what the complaint alleges, he’s likely to be in a heap of trouble. Bungie will look like a hero here, helped by the fact that its own stance on fan-created videos is fairly lenient.

But what few will talk about is a point that Bungie actually made at the outset of all of this: YouTube’s DMCA takedown process sucks and is absolutely begging to be abused. Minor may have been found out, assuming the complaint is correct, but how many times does that not happen? How many times, in the name of promiscuous enforcement of copyrights, have such fraudulent claims at a lower level never been given this attention? We see this all the time and nobody seems to want to do anything about it.

That’s the real problem here. A broken enforcement system that is ripe for abuse.

Filed Under: content id, copyright, copyright abuse, dmca, false takedowns, lord nazo, nicholas minor
Companies: bungie, youtube

More Details: Sony Reportedly Telling Its Game Studios Not To Comment On Abortion Issue

from the shhhhh dept

We had just discussed PlayStation Boss Jim Ryan’s somewhat bizarre email to his staff in the wake of the leaked SCOTUS draft opinion that signaled an end to Roe v. Wade being the law of the land. What started off as a reasonable request to respect the spectrum of opinions on a contentious social issue then devolved into an email largely about Ryan’s cats and his affinity for dogs. Yes, seriously.

Part of what made it odd was that Bungie, a company currently being acquired by Sony, had put out a statement that very much took a stance on the issue, as well as one that promised to have the backs of any staff member impacted by a change in the law. So how does that statement jive with Sony’s policy?

Well, we’re getting a peek at that policy now, with another Sony studio, Insomnia, telling its staff just how all of this will work. Spoiler alert: Sony will silently support abortion rights, but insists on that silent part on its own behalf and that of its studios.

On the support side of things:

Ratchet & Clank and Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games has made a $50,000 donation to the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP), and its parent company, Sony, will reportedly match that number. But those donations come amid public silence from both companies on the contentious issue and reports of internal drama surrounding a response to the Supreme Court’s reported efforts to overturn 1973’s Roe v. Wade precedent.

So there you are. Sony is matching its subsidiary’s donation to an organization dedicated to protecting abortion rights for women. It is also planning to reimburse any costs for its staff should they need to travel outside their state to get an abortion. That either indicates Sony has a side it’s picked on this issue or it is at least going to support its staff’s wishes. This is not, in other words, inaction or neutrality.

But Sony doesn’t seem to want the public to know what it’s doing. This comes from what Insomniac’s CEO Ted Price sent to his staff in an email.

Price’s email also reportedly detailed how Sony “will not approve ANY statements from any studio on the topic of reproductive rights.” That’s despite Insomniac sending nearly 60 pages of employee messages to PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst asking the company to “do better by employees who are directly affected” by any pending abortion decision. “We fought hard for this and we did not win,” Price wrote.

Price went on to address the sometimes awkward parent-child corporate relationship that has developed since Sony acquired Insomniac in 2019. “As far as our freedom of speech goes, while we do have a LOT of autonomy that often gets taken for granted, there are times where we need to acknowledge we’re part of a larger organization,” Price reportedly wrote. “For the most part, our ability to tweet has been unfettered. However, there are rare times when we’re in opposition (like this week) and [Sony] will have the final say.”

Look, Sony can do this. And, again, this is not a post about the abortion question. The problem here is that Sony really should know better than to think it can muzzle its employees in 2022 without the public becoming aware of that muzzling. It hasn’t been weeks and this news is already out in the wild.

And the end result of it is really dumb. The anti-abortion crowd is going to hate Sony for supporting its staff as it did. And the pro-abortion crowd is going to hate Sony for trying to be the Switzerland of video game companies on this particular issue.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to let studios and staff tweet what they like?

Filed Under: abortion, muzzling employees, speaking out
Companies: bungie, insomniac games, sony

The ‘Stick To Sports’ Crowd Is Now Coming After Gaming Companies

from the people-being-people dept

There has been a trend over the past decade or so in which a very specific part of America’s political spectrum appears to be simultaneously advocating for “free speech” in ways that have nothing to do with the American system while also attacking all kinds of other speech and insisting that speech not happen. Hypocrisy isn’t something new to American politics, of course, but the levels at which this is occurring are starting to get damned ridiculous. For example, the phrase “stick to sports” has entered into the popular lexicon. It existed prior to recent times, of course, dating back at least as far as Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, and Billie Jean King. But the reactions to figures such as Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James, who was told by one cable news anchor to “shut up and dribble,” has taken a tone that just doesn’t fit with modernity.

It’s something we might as well deal with as a culture, because this attempt to chill the speech of others is spreading well beyond the realm of athletes. The barrage of attacks against Disney by the state of Florida and its officials very much sent the wrong message to roughly half the country: if someone says something you don’t like, there will be government-led retaliation. When leaders do that sort of thing, they send a message to their constituents: companies have no business commenting on public policy, particularly if we don’t like their commentary.

Which is how you get this filtering all the way down to Bungie, a company that makes video games, dealing with blowback simply because the company put out a statement indicating it disagreed with a leaked SCOTUS draft decision that would eliminate federal protections for abortion and that it would support its own employees however it could.

At Bungie we believe that everyone has a right to choose their own path and that freedom is expressed across all facets of life. The leaked draft decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade represents a blow to freedom in America and is a direct attack on human rights.

By creating a divide between those who posses [sic] the fundamental right to make healthcare decisions that are right for them, and those who do not posses that same freedom, this decision, should it become final, will have far-reaching consequences that will be felt for generations across socio-economic lines.

Bungie is committed to safeguarding the freedom and privacy of its employees and providing support to all employees affected by this decision.

Standing up for reproductive choice and liberty is not a difficult decision to make, and Bungie remains dedicated to upholding these values.

I don’t care where you stand on the issue of abortion in general, there isn’t a thing to be angry about in this statement from either side. Bungie, as any company, is made of people. People who have opinions on the laws, or lack of laws, that effect their lives and the lives of their employees. This public statement was also done as much to be heard by Bungie staff, some of whom may be worried or frightened as to what this all means for them, as it was signaling its values to the public. And yet the company’s announcement via tweet came with some replies that were the equivalent of telling the company to “shut up and make video games.”

The Destiny-maker, which is set to become a Sony subsidiary in the coming months, went on to defend its position in the replies to a heavily trafficked tweet that went out to the company’s 2.8 million followers.

In response to a tweet arguing that Bungie “shouldn’t even be involved in this bunch of political BS,” Bungie wrote, “We’ve chosen our side and it wasn’t difficult. Our company values exist beyond our games.” In another response (to a since-deleted tweet), the company writes that it would “prefer to use our platform to make the world better for our employees and beyond.”

People, get it in your heads: Bungie is made of people. People have opinions on public policy. There is no more sense in telling the company to not make those opinions public than there is your pushing back publicly on those public opinions. It’s literally the same thing.

And even more than some individual, Bungie is a company that makes culture. Asking that nobody at the company comment on things happening to our culture is silly in the extreme.

So, no, don’t stick to sports. Don’t stick to making video games. Don’t stop arguing and discussing your disagreements with them, either. Either side telling the other not to talk isn’t just failing to advocate for the “free speech” so often cited, it’s also just behaving like an asshole.

Filed Under: culture, culture war, free speech, politics, video games
Companies: bungie

Bungie Loses On Copyright Claims Against Cheat Seller

from the it's-got-'copy'-right-there-in-the-word dept

Nearly the entire online-game-playing world hates the fact that cheating in online games exist. The cheaters don’t, obviously. Nor do those that make money by selling cheats and hacks for online games. Given the majority/minority situation here, it’s perhaps not terribly surprising that efforts to combat online cheating very often go way, way too far. There are countries out there that have actually criminalized the practice of cheating in online games. More common in America, another tactic has been the publishers and developers of these games arguing in court that using or selling these cheats and hacks constitutes one form of intellectual property infringement or another. Epic infamously targeted minors in lawsuits over their use of cheating tools. Riot Games and Blizzard also participated in this bastardization of copyright law, arguing that cheating breaks the game’s EULA, and that therefore meant playing the game in an unauthorized state, therefore copyright infringement. It’s a really dumb legal theory that unfortunately hasn’t received nearly the pushback it deserves.

Until now, perhaps. See, Bungie also participated in this madness, having taken a site called AimJunkies to court over Destiny 2 cheats it sold. In addition to claims that the site infringed Bungie’s trademarks, a dubious claim at best, Bungie also tried the copyright angle. Unfortunately, this particular court managed sanity for once and saw through the copyright claims.

A federal court in Seattle has dismissed Bungie’s copyright infringement claims against cheat seller AimJunkies.com. While it’s not disputed that ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ were offered for sale, the court is not convinced that these are copyright infringing. The trademark claims are intact, however, so the case is far from resolved.

The background on this is that AimJunkies had already removed the offending content from its site and entered into arbitration with Bungie. Forced arbitration is very specifically laid out in Bungie’s own licensing agreement. Despite being in arbitration, Bungie moved for summary judgement on the case, pissing off its arbitration interlocutor. Because of that, AimJunkies moved to have the case dismissed entirely. As AimJunkies indicated: no actual copying of Bungie’s IP occurred from a copyright perspective and every other claim ought to be settled via arbitration.

On the copyright side of things, at least, the court agrees.

After reviewing the positions from both sides, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly has now ruled on the matter. Judge Zilly dismisses the copyright claims as Bungie failed to show that AimJunkies copied its work.

“Notably, Bungie has not pleaded any facts explaining how the cheat software constitutes an unauthorized copy of any of the copyrighted works identified in the complaint. Bungie’s complaint must contain more than a ‘formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action’,” Judge Zilly writes.

Judge Zilly also agrees to refer the non-copyright and trademark-related claims to arbitration, as AimJunkies requested. This is in line with Bungie’s own license agreement and both parties are encouraged to resolve these issues outside of court.

Now, this isn’t necessarily all the way over. Bungie has room to refile the copyright claims with additional — to be read as “any” — evidence of actual copyright taking place. It also appears that the trademark claims were sufficient to go to trial, so that part continues. Though, as I hinted above, how Bungie is going to demonstrate that the public was in any way confused into thinking these cheats or AimJunkies were part of Bungie is beyond me.

Regardless, it’s nice to see a court finally ask the relevant question when it comes to online cheating and copyright: is there any actual copying occurring? If no, then this should be the result each and every time.

Filed Under: aimjunkies, cheat sellers, cheating, copyright, destiny 2, video games
Companies: bungie

Bungie Sues Does Over ‘Destiny’ DMCA Takedowns, Slams YouTube’s DMCA Process

from the to-the-woodshed dept

In our somewhat limited discussions about video game publisher Bungie, our remarks about the company certainly haven’t always been positive. And perhaps that colored my thinking when I recently wrote about a DMCA takedown blitz occurring among the Destiny community, with all kinds of uploads from fans being on the receiving end of takedowns on YouTube. But Bungie insisted it wasn’t them, a claim bolstered by the fact that some of Bungie’s own official videos on its channel also got hit with takedowns. Still, the statement from the company about all of this left some room for interpretation, with Bungie indicating that these takedowns weren’t happening at “the request” of Bungie, leading plenty of folks to assume this was an automated copyright enforcement bot or a 3rd party enforcement agency going rogue.

Well, I think we can safely put that theory to rest now. Bungie has not only sued 10 “John Does” over all of this, but also used its filing to take YouTube’s DMCA takedown process to the woodshed and absolutely beat the shit out of it. The filing starts off with a description of just what happened here: new Gmail accounts created to fraudulently impersonate Bungie enforcers of copyright, strikes coming from those newly created Gmail accounts, as well as a deep campaign by those accounts to claim that the actual legit Gmail accounts used for enforcement of Bungie copyrights were the fraudulent ones.

And then the filing goes in on YouTube’s process:

Doe Defendants were able to do this because of a hole in YouTube’s DMCA-process security, which allows any person to claim to be representing any rights holder in the world for purposes of issuing a DMCA takedown.

In other words, as far as YouTube is concerned, any person, anywhere in the world, can issue takedown notices on behalf of any rights holder, anywhere. A disgruntled infringer or a competitive content producer, for example, can issue takedown notices purportedly on behalf of Disney, or Fox, or Universal—or even Google itself. All they need to do is: (1) fill out the video removal form… (2) have a Google account—including, upon information and belief, one created that same day and with fake information; and (3) fill out information and click verification buttons fraudulently certifying that they have the right to submit the takedown request, with no verification done by YouTube.

Welcome to the team, Bungie. Here at Techdirt, we’ve been shouting to the world about how wide open the DMCA notice and takedown process is to fraud and abuse for years. Nice of you folks to finally catch up.

The filing then goes into great detail about the harm this has caused Bungie. To the company’s credit, the filing details Bungie’s fairly lenient policy on what fans can share and upload when it comes to footage of the company’s products. Still, Bungie has also utilized a third party, CSC, to takedown some videos featuring music from its games. This fraudulent blitz appears to have occurred after those CSC takedowns. The filing also notes the deluge of negative press and public response due to these takedowns.

Between March 2 and March 16, CSC initiated and completed 41 DMCA takedowns of YouTube videos on Bungie’s behalf. All of them “related to music from Destiny 2’s original soundtracks,” the lawsuit said.

The YouTubers whose videos were taken down included the Doe defendants, the lawsuit said. “Beginning on or about March 17, 2022, Doe Defendants began submitting unauthorized DMCA takedown notices to YouTube for videos that allegedly infringed Bungie’s copyrights,” the complaint said. “Upon information and belief, Doe Defendants created fake [name]csc@gmail.com Google accounts in order to submit the Fraudulent Takedown Notices.” In the notices, the defendants “identified themselves as ‘Bungie, Inc.'” or “as Bungie’s authorized agents.”

Oddly, at least one bit of communication from someone claiming to be sending false takedown notices said they did it intending to get caught so as to spotlight how shitty YouTube’s DMCA policy is.

I was directly affected by false takedowns from “David Thomson” several months ago, and many others were issued false takedowns by this person over the past several years. I believed with enough attention, Bungie might have been prompted to step in. The first few channels that were hit by takedowns didn’t seem to grab anyone’s attention, so I had to escalate the matter.

Bungie, for its part, is simply not playing around with this. The company is asking for $150k per fraudulent takedown notice sent and is seeking to unmask the ten John Does it has filed against.

So, while this is all very strange, it is clear these takedowns weren’t Bungie’s doing. It’s also very clear that everyone hates YouTube’s DMCA takedown process.

Filed Under: 512(f), copyright, dmca, dmca 512, fake takedowns, takedowns
Companies: bungie, bungie studios

Destiny Community Plagued By Copyright Takedowns, Bungie Insists It Isn’t Them

from the this-isn't-working dept

We’ve been making the point for years that the way copyright is currently enforced in online platforms is wide open for abuse and error. Between all the collateral damage created by automated copyright bots and all of the chicanery used to silence critics or to baselessly collect revenue on the work of others, there is simply more of this nonsense going on than most people realize.

The issue was first raised in this Reddit thread last week, when it was noticed that the work of a number of prominent Destiny “music archivists” was being removed. This is a particular sore point for the community, since their channels were helping preserve the soundtracks to pieces of content—from both Destiny games—that were no longer available in the games themselves.

But sometimes this sort of thing happens involving a wildly popular good or service, allowing us to highlight for the larger public how big a problem this all is. In this case, we’re talking about how the Destiny community is getting slammed with copyright takedowns on YouTube videos.

Things escalated from there over the next few days, with more and more soundtrack videos removed from the channels of more and more community members and creators. Then the takedowns even began extending to clips people had uploaded of cutscenes from the game that merely had pieces of the soundtrack playing in the background.

So, a bunch of fans of Destiny looking to preserve now-gone music from the games are finding their videos gone and their accounts facing copyright strikes. It won’t surprise you to learn both that the community was quite pissed off by all of this and immediately started pointing at Bungie and CSC, a Bungie affiliate. But when the noise got loud enough, well, things got strange.

We’re aware of a series of copyright takedowns on YouTube and we're actively investigating. This includes content on our own Bungie channels.

These actions are NOT being taken at the request of Bungie or our partners. Please standby for future updates.
https://t.co/xPY1EzkgTh

— Bungie (@Bungie) March 20, 2022

Yeah, that’s Bungie saying not only is it not the one getting all this content taken down, but even its channels were getting hit. Now, as others have already pointed out, you may notice the careful wording of that tweet. That word “request” is doing a lot of work, as it leaves open the door for this to be some automated system that Bungie chose to employ.

So, while we don’t know yet if this is in the automated system collateral damage category, or the fraudulent copyright takedown category, we do know that there is a problem with how this is all working. And, yet, you can be assured that is unlikely anything substantive will be done about it.

Filed Under: destiny, takedowns
Companies: bungie

With New Destiny DLC, Bungie Gives A Master Class In How To Alienate And Annoy Paying Fans

from the quadruple-dipping dept

Bungie, creators of the hit game Destiny, is going through a bit of a rough stretch. Whereas Witcher 3 creators CD Projekt Red have been showing the gaming industry how to do everything right in regards to DRM, DLC and consumer interaction, Bungie apparently decided to give a master class over the last few weeks on how to do everything very, very wrong.

Bungie’s first misstep came when it unveiled the latest Destiny expansion pack, The Taken King. To access all of the content in this new expansion, gamers need to buy the new $80 Collector’s Editon, forcing fans to shell out some notable cash to buy a slew of content they already owned (the base game and previous DLC), just to nab some new DLC doo dads. Destiny’s creative director, Luke Smith, then did an epically shitty job of not-really-trying to quell fan outrage over at Eurogamer, where he repeatedly dodged the question of why consumers should pay for content they already own:

“Eurogamer: Can you see that some fans are confused that you’re asking them to buy stuff they already own?

Luke Smith: Yeah, I can totally empathise with those people. But the Collector’s Edition is a pretty cool package for people who want to pursue that stuff. Otherwise, surely what you’re saying is that you would want to buy them separately, right?

Eurogamer: Well, yeah. I would rather do that – pay a few pounds or dollars or whatever – than spend money on things I already own.

Luke Smith: [Laughs] Well, we have nothing more to talk about regarding your opportunity to spend extra money in Destiny, other than The Taken King and the three versions we’ve announced”

Talk about non-answers. Smith essentially laughs off concerns about Bungie double dipping, arguing that users just haven’t seen the full awesome scope of what Bungie has planned. When pressed by Eurogamer, Smith would only elaborate that the company is “really comfortable with the value” they’re offering consumers. That of course completely ignored the fact that most Destiny fans were making it very clear they were not seeing said value whatsoever. Not too surprisingly, based on Smith’s seemingly-flippant tone in the article, many Destiny fans felt they were at best being ignored, and at worst being laughed at.

All of this is, of course, ingenious on Bungie’s part if the goal was to create a series of high caliber shitstorms on Reddit. Bungie only made things worse when the company subsequently announced that a chunk of The Taken King DLC would only be available to consumers who buy Red Bull products:

Over at Reddit, someone posted some leaked Red Bull marketing materials for the promotion, which are quick to highlight how this kind of stuff is great because Destiny players are “used to paying a premium for downloadable content.” Isn’t nickel-and-diming fans, like, totally rad?

Of course, one person’s bumbling face plant is another person’s marketing opportunity, and makers of the zombie apocalypse game Dying Light were quick to make fun of Bungie’s DLC horrible week by offering users free DLC…if they drink water (their Twitter feed is now amusingly full of people drinking water):

We're jumping on the latest trend in game marketing! #DrinkRightDyingLight > #DrinkForDLC pic.twitter.com/DQHr6MRFwi

— Dying Light (@DyingLightGame) June 24, 2015

The Eurogamer interview was published Monday, and by yesterday Bungie had been forced to do a complete 180, not only announcing they’d let fans buy the new DLC piecemeal, but also having Smith apologize for being an “asshat”:

“Reading my interview with Eurogamer and imagining it came from some random developer of a game I love – that random developer looks like an Asshat. But that Asshat was me – and those words rightfully anger you. I’m sorry.

My words made it sound as if Bungie doesn’t care about their most loyal fans. We do care. We are listening. And we will make it right.”

Of course, Bungie wouldn’t have to “make it right” if it hadn’t tried to aggressively nickel-and-dime its loyal fans in the first place. And Bungie, like many companies, wouldn’t be trying to aggressively nickel-and-dime loyal fans if gamers didn’t perpetually reward this kind of behavior by lapping up garbage pricing and content whenever it’s shoveled in their general direction. At the end of the day, the way to stop this kind of pricing isn’t to raise hell after the fact (though obviously that helps), it’s to avoid paying companies that exhibit this kind of behavior in the first place.

Filed Under: alienating, destiny, dlc, fans, luke smith, repay
Companies: bungie