The development studio of Destiny 2 is once again in the news thanks to yet another lawsuit being filed against one of its players. The latest bit of litigation leverages some serious charges against one Luca Leone, including copyright infringement, fraud, and harassment.
According to the filing, Leone is a serial cheater in the shooter, streaming his exploits under different usernames while dodging account bans by creating as many as 13 separate accounts. The suit also alleges that Leone threatened to burn down Bungie’s office and move to the neighborhoods of specific devs in order to directly threaten them:
“Leone’s use of cheat software also – as alleged in detail below – violates a raft of Federal and state statutes and the express terms of the Limited Software License Agreement (‘LSLA’) by which Bungie makes Destiny 2 available to players. And when he repeatedly created new Bungie accounts to play the game after being banned, claiming with each new account creation that he agreed to terms of the LSLA but never intending to abide by those terms, Leone committed serial fraud.
“In fact, one of the terms of the LSLA expressly entitles Bungie to ban Leone from playing the game for his cheating. Yet Leone has now made thirteen separate accounts in his attempts to evade the ban, and each new account was therefore a separate breach of the LSLA.
“Leone has also repeatedly made threats targeting Bungie and its employees, tweeting about his desire to ‘burn down’ Bungie’s office building and declaring that specific Bungie employees were ‘not safe’ given Leone’s intent to move into their neighborhood. Moreover, as alleged below, during the course of its investigation of Leone Bungie uncovered criminal conduct: Leone is an active member of the ‘OGUsers’ account hacking and selling forum, where he sells (presumably stolen) social media accounts – and also ‘sells’ Destiny 2 emblems (non-transferable digital art badges obtained by in-game achievements or real-world conduct, which are prized by many players, especially collectors), which is yet another violation of the LSLA.”
The suit seeks a minimum of $150K per copyrighted work infringement, attorney’s fees, and an injunction that prevents Leone from interacting with Bungie’s products and employees.
