The court has denied Bungie’s motion to dismiss the ongoing copyright legal battle between the studio and game writer Matthew Kelsey Martineau. The case claims that Bungie allegedly stole Martineau’s work for Destiny 2’s Red Legion and Red War concept after the studio took his ideas from a WordPress post he compiled four years before the game was released.
The case kicked off last year where Martineau, also known as Caspar Cole as his pen name, sued Bungie for copying his work to help develop the Destiny 2 universe. Martineau claims that the backbone of the Destiny 2 campaign was based around the Red Legion and is directly based on his work. The lawsuit is now trying to prove this.
Martineau says the game’s Red War and Curse of Osiris DLC all show direct references to his work.
In the latest update, Bungie attempted to get the case thrown out of court by claiming that the studio no longer has access to any of the original Destiny 2 base content to submit into evidence. Of course, this is because Destiny 2’s content vault, which sees past “purchased” content in the game, gets removed completely from the universe even though players spend money on it.
Bungie says the studio cannot demo this Red Legion content for the court, which is the basis of Martineau’s lawsuit. Instead, the studio wants to submit fan-made videos and livestreams as evidence. In an affidavit sent to the court, Destiny 2 director Tyson Green explained that due to the content vault and the way Destiny 2 is now as a package, the studio cannot provide the Red War and Curse of Osiris content to the court. It reads:
“The Red War and Curse of Osiris legacy builds can no longer run because their outdated code is incompatible with Destiny 2’s underlying operational framework, which has evolved considerably since the Red War and Curse of Osiris campaigns were retired. As a result, Bungie cannot feasibly provide the Court with the original Destiny 2 game as it existed in 2017, including the accused Red War and Curse of Osiris campaigns, in any operable or reviewable form. Nor will Bungie be able to produce the accused campaigns in operable or reviewable form if this matter proceeds to formal discovery.”
The court has refused to accept the third-party videos, saying it isn’t sufficient evidence to support their case. The judge claims that Martineau does not reference YouTube videos, Destinypedia pages, or Tyson’s declaration. He has complained about the Bungie-specific content, and as such, the studio needs to provide that as evidence to the court.
The judge has decided to continue with the case, saying:
“The Court will not consider the exhibits attached to Defendant’s motion to dismiss and will not convert the Defendant’s motion to dismiss to a motion for summary judgment. There has not been sufficient time for discovery, and the attachments are admittedly of third-party origination. Their authenticity has not been established.”
