Latest news with #TwinGalaxies
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Former Donkey Kong Champion Billy Mitchell Wins $275,000 For Defamation Over YouTuber's Death
Former Donkey Kong champion Billy Mitchell won his defamation lawsuit against speedrunning YouTuber Karl Jobst in Australia on Monday, over claims published in videos that blamed Mitchell for the death of another YouTuber. Jobst had also accused Mitchell of being aggressively litigious in trying to shut down discussions of past cheating allegations. A Brisbane, Australia judge ruled Jobst had made 'recklessly' false claims and ordered the YouTuber to pay Mitchell over $275,000 in damages and accrued interest. A long-time competitive gamer, Mitchell was made famous in the 2007 documentary The King of Kong for his high scores in several old arcade games, including the original Donkey Kong, for which he at various points held the champion title. But Twin Galaxies and The Guinness World Records vacated Mitchell's scores following a 2017 investigation into whether he used emulated software to achieve them, though Guinness later reinstated them. It wasn't the broad claims Jobst made about Mitchell's controversial cheating saga that landed him in court for defamation, but specifically suggestions that Mitchell had contributed to the suicide of fellow YouTuber Benjamin 'Apollo Legend' Smith. Jobst said the following in a May 2021 video about Mitchell: He also sued YouTuber Apollo Legend for $1,000,000. I haven't spoken about this publicly but this lawsuit ultimately ended with Apollo giving in and settling with Mitchell. He was forced to remove all his videos about Mitchell's cheating and paid him a large sum of money. This left him deeply in debt, which required him to find extra work, but with his ongoing health issues this was all too much of a burden and he ultimately took his own life. Not that Billy Mitchell would ever care, though. In fact, when Billy Mitchell thought Apollo died earlier he expressed joy at the thought. The lawsuit against Apollo was just as frivolous as the rest and Apollo definitely would have won in court, but again he was extremely ill and couldn't handle the ongoing stress. It has since been revealed that no money changed hands as part of Mitchell's settlement with Smith. The YouTuber was forced to remove several videos about the cheating saga, but only had to pay potential damages if he published on the subject again. Jobst ended up retracting the claim about Smith going into debt as a result of the settlement, but the court found that Jobst's ongoing behavior around the topic continued contributing to reputational harm against Mitchell. (The former world champion previously claimed his doctor would no longer see him on account of the cheating accusations.) The judge in the defamation case, Ken Barlow, concluded the following: Mr. Jobst defamed Mr. Mitchell by making all the imputations that Mr. Mitchell alleged; (b) Mr. Mitchell has suffered significant personal and reputational harm as a consequence; (c) although he had the previous reputations alleged by Mr. Jobst, and the defamatory video raised other substantially true contextual imputations about him, Mr. Mitchell suffered substantially more personal and reputational harm as a consequence of Mr. Jobst's imputations about which Mr. Mitchell complains; (d) Mr. Jobst's conduct since the first publication of the video, including during this proceeding, has been aggravating and has caused additional personal hurt and reputational damage to Mr. Mitchell. As a result, Jobst has been ordered to pay the former Donkey Kong champion $300,000 in non-economic damages, $50,000 in aggravated damages, and over $40,000 in interest, which amounts to roughly $275,000 in U.S. dollars. 'Nothing like the smell of victory in the evening air,' Mitchell wrote on X. 'Billy Mitchell always has a plan. Thank you to everyone who supported me. I am grateful.' Jobst, however, is now facing scrutiny by some who were confused that the judge's verdict ultimately didn't come down to claims about whether Mitchell cheated. 'I lost,' Jobst wrote on X. 'The judge found Billy to be a credible witness and believed his entire testimony. From that point on unfortunately there was really nothing that could have saved me. I will now obviously consider my options. I know many of you will be upset with this and I am sorry for that. Thank you again for all the support I have received and I will endeavor to work as hard as I can to repay all that you are owed.' A gofundme campaign to pay for Jobst's defense after a second lawsuit from Mitchell had been filed against him raised over $200,000 AUD. 'Last year, Billy Mitchell, star of The King of Kong and proven video game cheater, sued me for defamation,' reads the description. 'These lawsuits are unhinged and it is highly likely Billy will ultimately lose, but until we go to trial it requires a lot of money to deal with. I would appreciate any help that you are able to provide, as this affects not only me but my family as well. Obviously it's bad enough to attack me when I've done nothing wrong, but to injure them as well takes things to another level.' But some now feel the way Jobst repeatedly talked about the lawsuit on his YouTube channel, including one video titled 'Cheater Billy Mitchell Just Keeps Losing,' misled viewers into thinking the trial was primarily about the cheating allegations. The videos include comments of people donating to his channel specifically over Smith's death. 'There are a lot of lies being spread that I falsely claimed Billy sued me because I said he cheated,' Jobst continued on X after losing the lawsuit. 'I never claimed this, I only claimed it was relevant as part of my defense.' He added that his total legal fees 'are well over $600k,' and that he hadn't used the court case to try to drum up donations. 'But the criticism that I should have been more transparent is valid and I'm sorry,' he added. 'Truthfully I didn't want to repeat or mention any claims regarding Apollo Legend because it may have jeopardized my defense. I never intentionally lied regarding Apollo Legend either. I relied on incorrect information from multiple sources. I retracted the statements once I confirmed it was inaccurate but apparently it was not sufficient.' . For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The Guardian
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Donkey Kong champion wins defamation case against Australian YouTuber Karl Jobst
A professional YouTuber in Queensland has been ordered to pay $350,000 plus interest and costs to the former world record score holder for Donkey Kong, after the Brisbane district court found the YouTuber had defamed him 'recklessly' with false claims of a link between a lawsuit and another YouTuber's suicide. William 'Billy' Mitchell, an American gamer who had held world records in Donkey Kong and Pac-Man going back to 1982, as recognised by the Guinness World Records and the video game database Twin Galaxies, brought the case against Karl Jobst, seeking $400,000 in general damages and $50,000 in aggravated damages. Jobst, who makes videos about 'speed running' (finishing games as fast as possible), as well as gaming records and cheating in games, made a number of allegations against Mitchell in a 2021 YouTube video. He accused Mitchell of cheating, and 'pursuing unmeritorious litigation' against others who had also accused him of cheating, the court judgment stated. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The court heard Mitchell was accused in 2017 of cheating in his Donkey Kong world records by using emulation software instead of original arcade hardware. Twin Galaxies investigated the allegation, and subsequently removed Mitchell's scores and banned him from participating in its competitions. The Guinness World Records disqualified Mitchell as a holder of all his records – in both Donkey Kong and Pac-Man – after the Twin Galaxies decision. The judgment stated that Jobst's 2021 video also linked the December 2020 suicide of another YouTuber, Apollo Legend, to 'stress arising from [his] settlement' with Mitchell, and wrongly asserted that Apollo Legend had to pay Mitchell 'a large sum of money'. The judgment noted multiple versions of the video were published, with the allegations removed or addressed, before Jobst issued a retraction video in July 2021, two months after the original. The first video was viewed by more than 500,000 people, including 200,000 in Australia, the court heard. Judge Ken Barlow found Jobst had made five defamatory imputations about Mitchell, including that Mitchell had required Apollo Legend pay him a large sum of money and thus implying he 'in essence, hounded Apollo Legend to death'. Barlow found this was 'based on a fallacy' – and that Jobst, in not making further inquiries before publishing the video, had been 'recklessly indifferent' to if it was true. Jobst denied the imputations had been made in the video. He argued Mitchell had a pre-existing bad reputation because he had been previously exposed as a cheat, the court heard. Barlow found Mitchell did have an existing reputation as a cheat and for suing people who alleged he was a cheat, and found that Mitchell had expressed joy when he believed – incorrectly – on an earlier occasion that Apollo Legend may have died. But Barlow found Jobst had severely damaged Mitchell's reputation and caused distress. He described Jobst as having a 'self-aggrandising and perhaps self-protective tendency not to admit error and not to back down once he has taken a stance'. Barlow framed Jobst's actions as a 'crusade' against Mitchell, stating that he was trying to '[show] his audience that he is the knight who slew the Mitchell dragon'. The judgment summary noted that the court was not called on to decide, and did not decide, if Mitchell had cheated in his world record scores. The court awarded Mitchell $300,000 in damages for non-economic loss, and an additional $50,000 in aggravated damages due to Jobst's publishing the video twice, mocking Mitchell's complaint about it, failing to apologise and withdraw the allegations, and his 'clear malice' towards Mitchell. Jobst was ordered to pay more than $40,000 in interest on the damages from the date of publication, as well as Mitchell's costs. Mitchell had previously sued Twin Galaxies in the US in a case which settled in January 2024. As part of the settlement, Twin Galaxies published a statement that Mitchell had 'produced expert opinion that the game play on the tapes of Mr Mitchell's record game plays could depict play on an original unmodified Donkey Kong arcade hardware if the hardware involved was malfunctioning, likely due to the degradation of components'. The company said it would reinstate all of Mitchell's previous scores on its website's official historical database, and remove the dispute thread about Mitchell's records. Mitchell's Guinness World Records were also reinstated in June 2020.
