Month: February 2023

Bungie Requests $12 Million in Damages from Veterancheats

Game developer Bungie has requested a default judgment against the Romanian operator of Veterancheats, who failed to appear in court after being sued two years ago. Cheaters are unskilled and unethical players who ruin games for others, Bungie notes. The company requests over $12 million in damages for the various Destiny 2 hacks the site sold.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

veterancheatsOver the past several years, a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits has targeted alleged cheaters and cheat makers.

Several game companies including Take-Two Interactive and Epic Games have taken cheaters to court in the United States. More recently, American video game developer Bungie has been rather active as well.

Bungie is known for the Halo and Destiny series, which have millions of fans around the world. The popularity of these games also attracts cheaters and cheat sellers, including “Elite Boss Tech” and “AimJunkies.com.”

How these sellers have responded to legal pressure varies considerably. Earlier this year Elite Boss Tech accepted a loss by signing a consent judgment, agreeing to pay $13.5 million in copyright damages. AimJunkies, on the other hand, is doing everything in its power to fight back.

Bungie vs. Veterancheats

Bungie’s case against Veterancheats has gone in another direction. After the lawsuit was filed against the cheat seller in 2021, not much has happened. The site’s alleged operator, Romanian resident Mihai Claudiu-Florentin, didn’t answer the complaint in court.

A few days ago, this lack of action prompted Bungie to request a default judgment totaling roughly $12 million in damages for copyright infringement and circumventing Bungie’s technological protection measures.

According to Bungie, the defendant sold several Destiny 2 cheats, including “Razor”, “HLBOT”, and “Render.” These allowed “unskilled” and “unethical” players to gain an unfair advantage, effectively ruining the fun for everyone else.

“Cheat software negatively impacts the gaming experience of Bungie’s community of honest players who enjoy playing and winning fairly using skill and developed through practice,” Bungie writes.

It’s a sentiment shared by many affected gamers, and Bungie lists several instances of people publicly complaining about Destiny 2 cheaters.

Reddit reference provided by Bungie

cheat

Serious Money

Veterancheats remains online and is aware of the lawsuit. The cheat seller previously removed the Destiny 2 cheats from its site in the hope that would settle the matter. However, Bungie is pressing on.

The game company obtained subpoenas to request financial information from Coinbase, PayPal, and Stripe. The Stripe information was particularly useful as it revealed thousands of cheat sales, including 5,848 separate subscription transactions that could be linked to Destiny 2 cheats.

These transactions brought in roughly $146,000 in revenue, which Bungie demands as actual damages for copyright infringement. In addition, the game maker seeks $2,000 for each of the 5,848 sales for circumventing the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision – $11,696,000 in damages overall.

Adding attorneys fees to these two figures pushes total compensation above $12 million.

Serious Money

The damages are warranted for a variety of reasons, according to Bungie. The company has spent more than $2,000,000 on cheat mitigation while Veterancheats and Claudiu-Florentin willingly broke the law and then failed to respond to Bungie’s complaint.

Interestingly, Claudiu-Florentin did briefly communicate with the game maker’s legal team. When Bungie tried to get the transaction data from Stripe, Veterancheat’s operator offered to stop selling cheats going forward, if Bungie would stop pursuing the case.

Claudiu-Florentin instead pointed a finger at competing cheat sellers, who continued to offer similar software. In addition, he drew Bungie’s attention to the developer of the cheat.

“The one who should be sued is the developer of the product, not a small seller like me. Why they dont try to identify the developer of the product instead? ring-1,” Veterancheat’s operator wrote.

“I request a withdrawal of information request and if you accept, i will stop distributing the destiny 2 software (Skycheats,Battlelog,Privatecheatz has sold Destiny 2 software for more than 1 year and they did not got sued by Destiny 2,” he added.

Part of the cited email

bungie mail

This diversion attempt didn’t help, it appears, as Bungie continued with the case and now demands millions of dollars in compensation.

The court has yet to rule on the default judgment and damages request but without an official defense from Veterancheats, little stands in the way of a successful outcome for the game vendor.

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A copy of the motion for a default judgment against Veterancheats/Claudiu-Florentin and the associated memorandum is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Antarctic researchers say a marine heatwave could threaten ice shelves

The rise of ocean heat in Antarctica could potentially disrupt the global climate system.

Satellite Imagery of Iceberg A-74 calved from Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf

Enlarge / Iceberg A-74 calved from Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf in February 2021. (credit: Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2021)

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for its newsletter here. 

Research scientists on ships along Antarctica’s west coast said their recent voyages have been marked by an eerily warm ocean and record-low sea ice coverage—extreme climate conditions, even compared to the big changes of recent decades, when the region warmed much faster than the global average.

Despite “that extraordinary change, what we’ve seen this year is dramatic,” said University of Delaware oceanographer Carlos Moffat last week from Punta Arenas, Chile, after completing a research cruise aboard the RV Laurence M. Gould to collect data on penguin feeding, as well as on ice and oceans as chief scientist for the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research program.

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Internet Explorer is dead(er) after Microsoft disables IE11 on most versions of Windows 10

Microsoft officially retired Internet Explorer 11 last year, ending support for the final version of the company’s original web browser. But now the company has gone a step further and “permanently disabled” the browser on many Windo…

Microsoft officially retired Internet Explorer 11 last year, ending support for the final version of the company’s original web browser. But now the company has gone a step further and “permanently disabled” the browser on many Windows 10 systems that still had it installed. An update to Microsoft’s documentation for the IE11 retirement plan indicates […]

The post Internet Explorer is dead(er) after Microsoft disables IE11 on most versions of Windows 10 appeared first on Liliputing.

Chatreey AM08 is a Ryzen 9 5900HX mini PC with a physical performance dial

The Chatreey AM08 mini PC is an unusual-looking mini PC with slanted design and a power button at the top that also functions as a performance dial, letting you quickly switch between silent, balanced, and performance modes. At first glance it looks n…

The Chatreey AM08 mini PC is an unusual-looking mini PC with slanted design and a power button at the top that also functions as a performance dial, letting you quickly switch between silent, balanced, and performance modes. At first glance it looks nearly identical to the Chatreey AMR5 that launched last year, but the AM08 […]

The post Chatreey AM08 is a Ryzen 9 5900HX mini PC with a physical performance dial appeared first on Liliputing.

Biden FCC nominee slams critics, says ISPs shouldn’t get to choose regulators

“It is critical for at least one member of the FCC to be a consumer advocate.”

Gigi Sohn speaking into a microphone while seated during a Senate hearing.

Enlarge / Gigi Sohn testifies during a Senate Commerce Committee confirmation hearing on Feb. 9, 2022. (credit: Getty Images)

President Biden's long-stalled nominee to the Federal Communications Commission fired back at her critics today, saying that the telecom industry shouldn't be allowed to choose its own regulators.

"I believe deeply that regulated entities should not choose their regulator," Sohn said in prepared testimony for a Senate Commerce Committee nomination hearing today. "Unfortunately, that is the exact intent of the past 15 months of false and misleading attacks on my record and my character. My industry opponents have hidden behind dark money groups and surrogates because they fear a pragmatic, pro-competition, pro-consumer policymaker who will support policies that will bring more, faster, and lower-priced broadband and new voices to your constituents."

Biden first nominated Sohn, a longtime consumer advocate and former FCC official, on October 26, 2021. The full Senate never voted on whether to confirm Sohn as an FCC commissioner, and Biden renominated her last month. With the FCC deadlocked at two Democrats and two Republicans, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel hasn't been able to pursue any major regulation of an industry that was deregulated during the Trump era.

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