PhantomL0rd Seeks $35 Million in Damages from Twitch
Last week we got word from Dinglederper that Twitch staff would be making an appearance in court to explain their Terms of Service (ToS) in a lawsuit from James “PhantomL0rd” Varga, and while there wasn’t really much discussion of that to be found, we did find the reason for him to bring forward the suit. So, without further ado, let’s get into the PhantomL0rd lawsuit!
The PhantomL0rd Lawsuit
According to a report from Dextero, PhantomL0rd is seeking $35 million in damages from the streaming platform after his ban, which he also claims was wrong, caused “irreparable damages” to him and his brand.
Twitch has tried to argue that, as part of a clause in the contract Phantom had signed with the company, he may only seek up to $50,000 in damages.
Phantom argues that the clause isn’t enforceable, as he was both unaware of the clause or properly allowed to review his contract with Twitch, to which the company contended that they could not be held responsible for his failure to review it.
Why Was He Banned?
PhantomL0rd was banned from Twitch back in 2016 after both promoting a gambling site that he had failed to disclose his ownership of and for streaming said gambling site, a move that violates both Twitch and Valve’s ToS.
He was also accused of working with the creators of the gambling sites to change their code to allow him to win more often.
He was also alleged to have used a bot network to add a constant new stream of “subscribers” to his channel, even when banned, making it look more popular than it really was and tricking actual users into subscribing to him.
The ban was regarded by many in the gaming community to have been a long time coming, as Phantom had been accused in the past of using the platform to scam children and others.
The PhantomL0rd lawsuit is still ongoing, but Twitch is expected to counter-sue Phantom for the $50,000 max the clause in their contract allows, settling for that fee to avoid drawing the proceedings out.
We’ll continue to keep you updated as the case continues to develop.
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