Halo and Destiny composer Marty O'Donnell's legal woes just got worse today. A Washington judge has ruled O'Donnell in contempt of a 2015 injunction that barred him from owning or posting materials related to Destiny, and Bungie is asking for $100,000 in damages.
O'Donnell's history with Bungie goes back over a decade. The man who famously created Halo's iconic soundtrack was fired from Bungie in 2014 without cause, leading to a wrongful termination suit that O'Donnell eventually won. However, as part of that ruling, O'Donnell was required to hand over to Bungie all materials related to Destiny and was enjoined from using said materials for his own personal gain.
Fast forward to 2019 when O'Donnell posted videos relating to Destiny and its musical development (in a piece titled "Music of the Spheres'') to his YouTube and social media accounts. Bungie caught wind of this and petitioned the court, stating O'Donnell was in violation of the 2015 order.
On July 12, 2021, Judge Regina Cahan of the Superior Court of Washington King County agreed with Bungie and ruled O'Donnell in contempt. As part of her ruling, O'Donnell was ordered to remove all of his posted Destiny materials (which he's already done), contact anyone who's reposted that material and ask them to take it down, and pay Bungie all proceeds he received by selling Music of the Spheres songs on his Bandcamp.
Additionally, O'Donnell was ordered to submit to a third-party forensics examination to ensure he was in compliance with the court order and had deleted all of his Destiny material. O'Donnell was further ordered to pay all legal fees and "reasonable costs" related to the forensics audit, to the tune of nearly $100,000, according to documents obtained by Eurogamer.
O’Donnell is now arguing the reasonableness of those legal fees, but it’s all but certain he’ll be out tens of thousands of dollars. Last June, O'Donnell asked his followers to purchase the Golem soundtrack to help cover his legal fees.