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

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.