Bungie’s two-year authorized battle in opposition to a Future 2 cheat maker lastly concluded final week. The choose agreed that cheat maker AimJunkies had violated Bungie’s copyright and ordered it to pay over $3.6 million in damages and $700,000 in authorized bills.
AimJunkies is an internet site owned by Phoenix Digital Group, which creates aimbots for Future 2 and different FPS video games. The primary lawsuit began in 2021, and the courts initially favored AimJunkies, with a choose dismissing a few of Bungie’s claims after discovering that making cheats wasn’t an inherent infringement of copyright. Bungie re-filed its lawsuit in Could, and the cheat maker took on a extra aggressive technique to defend itself from Bungie’s different lawsuits. AimJunkies even tried to assert that the developer had violated its copyright by reverse engineering the code for its cheat software program.
Based on the paperwork discovered by Torrent Freak, the courts discovered that AimJunkies violated Bungie’s copyright on Future 2. One of many cheat’s engineers reverse-engineered the sport code with the intention to create and promote the aimbots, typically circumventing bans to take action. This was a direct violation of the software program licensing settlement that he needed to settle for with the intention to obtain the sport.
The choose thought that Phoenix Digital Group had not been significantly cooperative with the developer’s authorized requests. After Bungie despatched the corporate a cease-and-desist order, AimJunkies’ proprietor falsely claimed that he had already bought the web site. The courtroom additionally discovered that Phoenix Digital Group had “deleted information of cheat software program and destroyed monetary information associated to the gross sales of the cheats.”
The corporate’s willingness to “conceal” its cheat gross sales contributed to a heavier punishment than it in any other case might need obtained. The choose awarded Bungie $2,500 for every of the 1,361 violations. The damages got here to a complete of $3,657,500. The courtroom additionally awarded Bungie $738,722 in authorized charges.
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Whereas the earlier lawsuit from 2021 discovered that making Future 2 cheats didn’t violate Bungie’s copyright, the present choose believed that the software program had violated Washington’s shopper safety legal guidelines. The courtroom determined that gamers who use cheats have an unfair and misleading benefit over gamers who don’t.
So there you have got it: A mix of copyright legal guidelines, destruction of proof, and gamer rights helped Bungie’s attorneys safe over 4 million {dollars} in charges and damages.