Cheat Maker Sues Bungie For Hacking Its ‘Destiny 2’ Hacks
Bungie, has been sued by popular cheat maker AimJunkies over claims that Bungie violated the DMCA on AimJunkies cheats, hacked one of their contractors’ computers, and violated copyright law by reverse engineering the software to build countermeasures against it.
This case is only possible because of evidence presented by Bungie in its amended case against AimJunkies for developing cheats. News of the countersuit was first reported by TorrentFreak.
Essentially, evidence gathered through the discovery process revealed how Bungie tracks and reverse engineers cheats, and the creators of AimJunkies are trying to exploit that and counterattack.
“The fruits of these illegal actions should not reap rewards in the justice system. They have the balls to go to court and claim that we decompiled their software while they illegally decompiled ours,” David Schaefer, CEO of Phoenix Digital Group, the company that owned AimJunkies until earlier this year and is part of the lawsuit, told Waypoint. “We are still waiting for them to show evidence that the principals of Phoenix Digital Group ever played the game or consented to any [Limited Software Licensing Agreement] of theirs. They have made all these claims in court documents. We have asked for the proof several times, to no avail.”
In the original suit, Bungie alleged that AimJunkies had infringed on certain aspects of Bungie’s copyrights and trademarks Fate 2its code, but some aspects of the code were copyrighted after 2019, when the cheats started being sold. This meant that the copyright at the time of its creation had not been infringed, a fact that AimJunkies presented to the court in hopes of dismissing the case outright. The judge dismissed the particular charges citing both the copyright date and an insignificant amount of evidence proving the work was copied by the software, but gave Bungie the option to amend its case against AimJunkies and move forward with a trademark infringement case.
After presenting new evidence to the court regarding the role of certain AimJunkies members in the production of the cheat software, Bungie revealed that some of the information had been gathered by checking files on James May’s computer.
May was a contractor working for AimJunkies who signed the Limited Software License Agreement (LSLA) for Destiny 2 in 2019, which as of 2019 did not allow Bungie to monitor user files for anti-cheat purposes (although such a clause is now part of the game’s LSLA) .
Furthermore, AimJunkies accused Bungie of circumventing the DMCA of AimJunkies’ cheating software by purchasing, cracking and reverse engineering the software to develop more advanced anti-cheating technology. AimJunkies then asks Bungie to pay it damages, drop Bungie’s own allegations, and cease its LSLA and DMCA violation practices.
AimJunkies has, throughout this process, repeatedly claimed that cheating in video games is not illegal. It’s annoying, though, and somehow manages to make all parties involved, from the cheaters themselves to the original studio, look extremely goofy – much like the lawsuit it spawned.
Schaefer also shared a message to all the people who played games made by Bungie between 2017 and 2021. “You should be aware that if you were banned, there is a possibility that your computer was also registered illegally and you would be entitled to repayment if proven,” he said.
And to current players, Shaefer said, “You have agreed in the current LSLA to allow Bungie/Battleye to look at the game files and core-level activity on your computer. Knowing what you know now from our experience, you trust that they are only looking that on your computer?”
UPDATE, September 26, 12:21 PM ET: This story has been corrected. An earlier version of this story stated that James May was an AimJunkies employee, when in fact he was a contractor.
