Bungie’s Copyright Battle Against Cheat Seller AimJunkies Ends with Final Capitulation

The legal battle between game developer Bungie and cheat seller AimJunkies is over. A stipulated dismissal filed at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals effectively marks the end of the case, one notable for a first-ever verdict holding a cheat maker liable for copyright infringement. Comments shared with TorrentFreak suggest that AimJunkies takes full responsibility.

Four years ago, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing Destiny 2 cheat seller AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

The same accusations were also leveled against Phoenix Digital Group, several people connected to the company, and a third-party developer.

Bungie Wins Landmark Jury Trial

After years of legal back-and-forth, in May 2024 the case became the first of its kind to go before a jury. In court, AimJunkies emphasized that it had never accessed or modified any of Destiny 2’s copyrighted game code. Bungie, on the other hand, argued that AimJunkies’ copyright-infringing activities were blatant and obvious.

At the end of the trial, the Seattle jury ruled in favor of the video game company, finding all defendants liable for direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement. Phoenix Digital Group and all individual defendants were ordered to pay damages equivalent to the actual profits they earned, a total of $63,210.

The jury verdict was a clear victory for Bungie, but it didn’t mark the end of the legal battle. AimJunkies challenged the verdict and several related orders at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Cease-Fire as Settlement Looms?

In December 2024, the parties began discussing a settlement. However, the follow-up did not go as smoothly as planned, and by August 2025, there were doubts that a final agreement was imminent.

“Although Appellants have diligently sought to settle this case since late last year, Bungie, Inc.’s lack of responsiveness and constant claims of its counsel that Bungie needed to be consulted for even the most routine questions have kept this from happening,” AimJunkies’ attorney informed the court in August.

Because the attorney was facing health issues himself, AimJunkies filed a request to postpone his opening brief until September 19, 2025. However, that brief never came, as both parties eventually agreed to dismiss the appeal at the last minute, which effectively ended the legal battle.

AimJunkies Throws in the Towel

On Monday, the AimJunkies defendants and Bungie informed the court of their decision. The brief doesn’t mention a settlement of any kind but notes that each party will bear its own costs and fees.

Dismissal
 

The dismissal means that the jury verdict will stand. As such, the AimJunkies team is required to pay the damages award of $63,210. In addition, Bungie was previously awarded almost $4.4 million in damages and fees in a separate arbitration proceeding, which also remains intact.

Bungie has not commented publicly on the outcome of the legal battle, but we received a message, purportedly from an AimJunkies representative, informing us that the appeal had been dropped with AimJunkies aaccepting full responsibility.

“[W]e dropped the last appeal related to our dispute with Bungie related to the creation, development, advertising, sale, and distribution of the Destiny 2 cheat software previously sold on AimJunkies.com and related websites,” the email begins.

“We acknowledge and admit that the cheat software infringed Bungie’s registered copyrights in Destiny 2 in violation of United States copyright law, circumvented Bungie’s technological protection measures in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, violated Bungie’s Limited Software License Agreement (‘LSLA’), and caused the users of the cheat software to violate their respective LSLAs with Bungie, among other violations of law.

“We apologize to Bungie and the many Destiny 2 players impacted and harmed by our actions,” the email concludes.

Unverified statement
 

The message above was sent before the dismissal was communicated to the court and arrived from an unknown email address. Follow-up attempts to verify its authenticity, including questions sent to AimJunkies’ attorney, remain unanswered. The same applies to our inquiries sent to Bungie’s legal team.

At the time of writing, the official AimJunkies website is offline, so it appears that the company may have given up on the entire operation, including cheats for other games that have nothing to do with Bungie.

Source

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Posted Friday 26 September 2025 at 6:01 pm AEST (my time).

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