Judge Denies Bungie’s Destiny 2 Copyright Dismissal Because It Would Have Been A 10-hour Lore Explainer
Bungie finds itself in quite an awkward predicament, one that fans of Destiny 2 can not help but laugh at. Since October 2024, they have been involved in a lawsuit. Matthew Kelsey Martineau accused Bungie of stealing content from the story that he wrote on his blog. While some ideas are generic, some, like the story and Destiny 2’s Red War, use the Red Legion as the predominant antagonists.
Bungie Faces Copyright Lawsuit
Matthew Kelsey Martineau claimed he wrote a story on his blog under the pseudonym Caspar Cole, which had eerily close links to Destiny 2’s Red War Campaign. The faction, Red Legion, is a significant similarity between the stories, while both have a celestial object hovering above the Earth, which might be a coincidence.
Bungie appealed to the court to dismiss the allegations of Copyright, using fan-made YouTube content and images from the Destinypedia Wiki page. They could not use content from their game because they placed plenty of content into a ‘Vault’ at the beginning of the Beyond Light Expansion. The content included the Red War and Forsaken Campaigns, Curse of Osiris and Warmind DLCs, and a handful of planets. Bungie can not restore the content according to their claims, despite its existence in the ‘Vault‘. Part of the evidence provided is a YouTube creator, My Name is Byf’s ten-hour-long lore video. The video details all the lore surrounding the Destiny 2 universe before the beginning of the Final Shape Expansion.
Judge Denies Bungie’s Dismissal of Copyright Lawsuit
The judge presiding over the lawsuit deemed the evidence provided as inefficient. While the content is from the Destiny 2 universe, it is not from the game itself. Because of this, they must give actual gameplay from the Vaulted Content for the judge to consider Bungie’s dismissal claims.
The Vaulted Content has been a massive pain point for the Destiny 2 community. Players have requested the re-addition of the content as the Expansions and DLCs had some of the best stories and activities in Destiny 2’s history. The news that Bungie can not dismiss a lawsuit due to the Vaulted Content has given the community a reason to laugh at Bungie’s mistakes. If they can restore the content for the lawsuit, maybe they can re-add it into Destiny 2.
Bungie’s failed appeal does not mean they will lose the lawsuit, but it is a setback they did not expect. They must remain in the court case for the foreseeable future, bringing unneeded attention to a company already struggling to regain the faith of its community.
