AimJunkies Still Has To Pay Bungie $4.3M For Copyright Infringement As Judge Refuses Arbitration Appeal

Over a year ago, in February of 2023, cheat seller AimJunkies, along with its parent company Phoenix Digital and developer James May, were sued by Destiny 2 developer Bungie over copyright infringement and violation of anti-circumvention rules in the DMCA. Bungie won the trial, with AimJunkies being ordered to pay the developer damages equal to the money they took in selling the cheat, a little over $63,000.

Prior to that trial, Bungie and AimJunkies settled some of the claims made in the original suit via an arbitrator who eventually awarded Bungie over $4M in damages and fees. Over a year later, Bungie still hasn’t received any of the money they were awarded. As is common in situations such as these, AimJunkies elected to appeal the ruling, asking for a new trial in the case of the $63K verdict as well as an appeal on the arbitrated ruling. In the case of the latter AimJunkies’ appeal was based on their claims that they were denied the ability to challenge the credibility of a witness.

In both cases, the appeals have been refused. According to a report on Torrent Freak, a do-over on the trial was refused with the judge stating that Bungie only needed to establish that AimJunkies’ software “had copied protected aspects of Destiny 2”, which they had done – to the judge and jury’s satisfaction. As for the arbitration appeal, the judges determined that AimJunkies were not denied the ability to challenge the key witness, but that they didn’t actually attempt any of the options available to them and that “counsel abandoned the line of questioning entirely”.