Even though human beings have been able to grow on a rather consistent basis, we still suffer from some glaring limitations. One such limitation talks to our inability around assessing the risk in play. You see, time and time again, we have failed to recognize an arriving threat, and as a result, we have repeatedly put ourselves in a position where consequences are never good. Some of these consequences would even leave an indelible mark on the world. Hence, to curb such occurrences, we will set-up dedicated regulatory bodies across the board. This created a sense of order that we had never seen before, but the bump was short-lived, as soon enough, the whole structured was undermined on the back of technology’s arrival. Suddenly, every rule breaker had a legitimate shot at hiding their misdoings. The said trend was, in fact, alive and kicking until some recent cases forced us to rethink our approach. Fortunately, the new framework seems to be steering us in the right direction, and Bungie’s latest decision should only add to the said journey.
Bungie, the developer behind Destiny series, has officially filed a lawsuit against ten unnamed defendants on the basis of fraud, false designation, copyright infringement, business defamation, and the violation of Washington Consumer Protection Act. According to certain reports, these individuals posed as Bungie just to hit various Destiny-related channels with copyright strikes. The move will end up sparking an outage among the Bungie faithful who had no idea that the company itself was receiving the said notices. Nevertheless, while one might at look it from an isolated standpoint, Bungie wants to use this lawsuit for solving a bigger issue than getting some internet trolls punished. The issue we are talking about revolves around YouTube’s questionable policies. For years, the tech giant has allowed any user to come and issue DMCA threats against channels, but it has, so far, failed to show similar consideration towards the other side, thus creating a very lopsided power dynamic.
“Bungie had to devote significant internal resources to addressing it and helping its players restore their videos and channels—an effort complicated by the fact that while YouTube has a form that allows anyone to claim to represent a copyright holder and issue copyright strikes, it has no dedicated mechanism for copyright holders who are being impersonated to let YouTube know about the DMCA fraud,” the complaint stated.
At present, Bungie is seeking damages worth $150,000 for each Fraudulent Takedown Notice that deliberately violated the company’s copyrights.