An Australian court has ordered YouTuber Karl Jobst to pay over AU$380,000 (around $237,000 / £183,000) in damages to celebrity arcade gamer Billy Mitchell, relating to defamatory comments made by Jobst in a video published in 2021. Jobst is a Queensland-based gaming YouTuber with a focus on speedrunning and competitive games.
Mitchell's record-holding Donkey Kong scores were called into question in 2017, which ultimately led to Mitchell's removal from both the Twin Galaxies and Guinness World record books. This set in motion a confusing web of litigation, ultimately resulting in Mitchell's records being reinstated. One of the lawsuits filed by Mitchell was against the late YouTuber Benjamin Smith, aka Apollo Legend, who had recorded several videos claiming Mitchell had cheated.
Jobst' video—subtly titled 'The Biggest Conmen in Video Game History Strike Again!'—implied that Mitchell's settlement with Smith involved the latter paying him a large sum of money, ultimately leading to his suicide in 2020. Jobst also claimed in the video that Mitchell had "expressed joy at the thought" of Smith's death. It was this—and not any claim about the legitimacy of Mitchell's Donkey Kong scores—that prompted Mitchell to sue Jobst.
According to judge Ken Barlow, the 2020 settlement between Mitchell and Smith never involved the exchange of money. Smith was required to remove all YouTube videos and social media posts relating to Mitchell, assign copyright to those removed videos to Mitchell, and to cease publishing about Mitchell or face a $25,000 fine for each breach.
In his video Jobst initially claimed that Smith was ordered to pay $1m to Mitchell. Jobst edited the video several times between May and June 2021: once after Mitchell warned in his own video that he intended "to respond the way that everyone anticipates for me to respond", and the other when Smith's brother confirmed to Jobst that no money had been exchanged between Apollo Legend and Mitchell.
The judge pointed out that over 500,000 people had "downloaded" Jobst's offending video (including 20,000 in Australia, which matters in an Australian defamation case) and that it had resulted in many comments accusing Mitchell of murder, among other things. Judge Barlow also brought to attention Jobst's audacity: after receiving a concerns notice from Mitchell's lawyers in 2021, Jobst had posted on Twitter that the claim was "exciting" and that the case would be "an amazing experience".
Jobst will pay AU$300,000 for damages for non-economic loss, and AU$50,000 for aggravated damages, in addition to AU$34,668.50 interest. "He may well have been justified in being ordered to pay more than AU$50,000 in aggravated damages," the judge said, "but that is the amount being sought by Mr Mitchell and that is the amount I shall award."
Jobst posted on X in the wake of the ruling. "I lost. 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."
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