Destiny 2 cheater fined $500K, permanently banned from Bungie interaction

Bungie has been awarded another legal victory against a recurring Destiny 2 cheater. Arstechnica spotted that Washington judge Richard Jones recently sided in the studio's favor against Luca "inkcell" Leone. 

Leone was sued by Bungie last year for using in-game cheats during multiplayer matches, harassing staffers at the company, and threatening to burn down the developer's headquarters. In a consent judgement deemed acceptable by both parties, Leone will pay $500,000 in copyright damages.

In the case of the cheats, Jones found that Leone's use of their graphical overlays "operates by injecting code into [Destiny 2's] code...and thereby infringes Bungie’s Copyrights as an unauthorized derivative work." His ruling covers $150,000 each for the two infringements. 

Previously, Leonne was banned multiple times for using those cheats, but would simply make a new account and repeat the process. He was found to have done this "at least 100" times, and was fined $2,000 for each attempt.

Bungie takes its lawsuits against cheaters and toxic behavior seriously

Jones also ruled that Leone is effectively banned forever from both Destiny 2 and future Bungie titles. Not only can he not be within 1000 feet of Bungie's offices or knowingly be in the same radius for the home address of any Bungie employee, he can't harass (directly or indirectly) Bungie or any of its employees.

Game-wise, he's forbidden from "obtaining, downloading, copying, playing, streaming, or otherwise interacting with Bungie’s games," or leading others to cheats for said works. Leone can't even purchase or resell "Bungie accounts, emblems, clan names, or any other asset, item, or other thing associated with [its] games."

Bungie's legal win against Leone comes amid a string of player-related lawsuits taken against the toxic parts of its community. In July, Jesse James Comer was ordered to pay a similar $500,000 fine for harassing one of the studio's community managers.

In April, it was awarded $12 million from cheat-seller Mihai Claudiu-Florentin, who ran the VeteranCheats site Bungie began pursuing in 2021.