Former Destiny and Halo composer urges fans to ‘destroy’ music he wasn’t supposed to share

Martin O’Donnell had to post a statement as part of a court order.

Martin O’Donnell, the former Bungie composer, asked fans to ‘destroy’ Destiny  music assets he shared publicly without asking for permission.

As reported by Eurogamer, O’Donnell was found in contempt of court over using Destiny assets, specifically early renditions of Music of the Spheres, that were uploaded to his YouTube, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud pages in 2019. O’Donnell did not have legal authority or Bungie’s permission to do so, resulting in him having to post a message on his social media pages urging fans to destroy any of the Destiny 2 assets he shared. 

“I do not have, and have not had since at least April 2014, the legal authority to possess or distribute non-commercially available material related to Destiny  or Music of the Spheres (including material I composed or created while working for Bungie),” O’Donnell said on YouTube. “This material is owned by Bungie.”

O’Donnell continued: “If you posted any of these assets on a website or other publicly available platform, you should remove the content immediately. If you have copies of these assets, you should refrain from sharing and destroy any copies of them. This request does not apply to any Destiny  or Music of the Spheres material that you lawfully obtained from commercially available sources.”

You can watch the video from O’Donnell below.

Both Bungie and O’Donnell agreed upon the message as part of a court order. Additionally, O’Donnell will refrain from commenting further on the situation.

O’Donnell is one of gaming’s most celebrated composers, having done the music for every mainline Halo  game up until  343 Industries  took over the franchise. He then went on with Bungie to work on Destiny’s  initial soundtrack before the two parties went separate ways.

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