At the end of March, Destiny 2 content creators where inundated with a barrage of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) strikes on YouTube that appeared to come from Bungie.

While DMCA strikes aren’t uncommon on YouTube, these were strikes for original content created by the Destiny 2 community and it didn’t take long for the community to start demanding answers.

At the time, Bungie said that the DMCA strikes did not come from it nor the firm it employs to police this sort of thing – CSC.

Now a new lawsuit [PDF] via Games Radar has provided us with insight into what happened in March and we advise grabbing some popcorn because this is a wild ride.

Bungie alleges that a Destiny 2 content creator who goes by Lord Nazo online and Nick Minor in the real-world orchestrated something of a revenge plot. This is because Bungie issued a legitimate takedown notice for content Minor had uploaded in 2021. That content was the original soundtrack for the 2015 Destiny expansion The Taken King.

Rather than deleting the infringing content, Minor allegedly left it up until YouTube itself deleted it. The in February, Minor allegedly uploaded tracks from Destiny 2: The Witch Queen soundtrack to YouTube.

After both of these incidents, Minor created new email addresses. The first was JefferyWilandCSC@gmail.com and the second was damianreynoldscsc@gmail.com. The lawsuit suggests that this was likely to imitate the syntax of CSC email address.

So what Minor do with these email addresses? He started firing off illegitimate DMCA takedown notices, 96 of them.

“Ninety-six separate times, Minor used his fake ‘CSC’ Gmail addresses to exploit the hole in YouTube’s DMCA-process security that allows anyone at all to claim to be representing a rights holder for purposes of issuing a takedown, with no real safeguards against fraud,” reads the lawsuit.

But wait, there is more.

While Minor was issuing these takedowns he was spreading disinformation that Bungie was behind the takedowns. This, the developer says, caused it “significant reputational and economic damage”.

“…the Destiny community was bewildered and upset, believing that Bungie had reneged on a promise to allow players to build their own streaming communities and YouTube channels on Destiny 2 content. Destiny community members were also misled to believe that Bungie’s brand protection agent was also fraudulent, causing confusion among users as to the authenticity of legitimate DMCA notices,” the lawsuit continues.

While the lawsuit is about Minor, it doesn’t hold back on describing YouTube’s failings either. The developer explains how it had to work through several layers of YouTube contacts over several days before it could even start to address the problem.

We highly recommend you read Paul Tassi’s timeline of events which includes screengrabs from the Discord Minor was in at the time of the takedowns.

For his transgressions, Bungie is seeking damages amounting to $7 650 000 or $150 000 for each of the works implicated in the fraudulent takedown notices.

What a crazy ride for nothing other than to troll Bungie in some weird twisted revenge plot.