Longtime readers, at least of the sort who click on lawsuit articles, might recall that six years ago former Destiny composer Martin O’Donnell sued Bungie over Bungie’s effort to strip him of his shares in the company and deny him his rights as a shareholder when firing him from the studio. O’Donnell won that initial confrontation, and apart from the time when he resurfaced to spill some tea over the relationship between Bungie and Activision-Blizzard, you probably forgot all about it. We did.
But this past fall, O’Donnell returned to headlines when a judge hit him with a contempt of court ruling. As we tried to unravel at the time, the terms of the original lawsuit forbade him from sharing and performing music and materials relating to the game. But in 2019, he did it anyway, at one point even selling the music he had no rights to, which meant Bungie had grounds to take him back to court for violating the settlement. The judge ordered O’Donnell to pay Bungie “reasonable costs” for the suit, which apparently amounted to $100,000. He was also ordered to film a video for his followers urging them to destroy the music, and as of this weekend, he’s finally done it.
The brief video declares that he hasn’t had “legal authority” to distribute Destiny’s music since 2014 and recommends viewers destroy any ill-gotten copies and remove them from any online platforms. So there you go. Be real nice if this guy stays out of the headlines going forward, eh?
