The creator of the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod CD Projekt recently hit with a DMCA strike has paused his Patreon page and pulled access to all his mods after receiving another strike from a different publisher.
Looks like the Ghostrunner developers also have an issue with paid mods running off their IP.
If he had a generic mod that happened to support Cyberpunk 2077 / that other game that got him DMCA’d, I’d agree. But he’s using that IP, name, etc. to market his product and sell it - the publisher is well within their right to not want to be associated with that.
A DMCA (copyright) troll has a much different connotation than what these two publishers are doing.
“Using the name” would be a trademark violation, not copyright, and that’s not a claim I’ve heard made. It sounds like he’s very clear that it’s his project.
This is exactly DMCA trolling. If he is not using or sharing any IP (game assets, logos, images, characters, code, etc.) in his mods, then he’s not violating their copyright. Making a program that interacts with their IP is not a copyright violation, because he did not distribute any of their IP.
Unless I’m missing something. I haven’t been following this, but it does seem like a perfect example of DMCA abuse.
Even if he’s sharing video footage of the mod working with their game, that’s likely protected. (I think it’s called “Fair Use” in the US?) Nintendo is a massive DMCA troll about that, claiming anyone sharing Let’s Play footage of their games is copyright violation, and throwing out DMCAs like Halloween candy.
Which is why the DMCA is bad legislation; there are no penalties for abuse by copyright holders, and the cost to fight a DMCA takedown notice in the courts is prohibitive. There need to be harsh penalties for companies abusing the system to target content that a reasonable person would say is clearly protected use. Without that, the end result of the DMCA laws were clear, right from the start.
We need digital sovereignty so creators can host their content on local-law abiding servers that ignore America’s corrupt, bullshit DMCA takedown system, and whose monetization can’t be shut down by American payment processors.
He made a mod that uses the IPs name and assets packaged and sold. In violation of the licence agreement of the games assets.
He’s in violation of IP and copyright. It’s really cut and dry here.
He did not make a stand alone product that is fully self sufficient that just happens to support the game. No, he made a direct modification of someone else’s code/product and is selling it with out permission.
He kind of does, doesn’t he? His software supports 40+ games, it’s not just Cyberpunk. There’s no Cyberpunk content in his mod, it’s just software that manipulates other software. It seems insane that people are supporting this as a legit DMCA takedown, and that the response has been to pirate his software like that is somehow now justified by him allegedly violating CDPR IP. I don’t get it at all. If he was distributing a modified version of their game that would be one thing but it’s software that allows users to modify a variety of different games they have a license for, which is obviously something else entirely.
He’s using their IP to advertise his commercial product - a paid mod that supports their game. This use of IP generally isn’t considered fair use. It’s not the fact that it supports the game that’s a violation, it was the advertising that was more my point.
And then as DMCAs generally go, companies overreact (like Patreon) and overreach. I don’t think CD Project Red could reasonably have done anything if all this was was a footnote that his mod supports CP2077 and the advertising was happening via content creators plugging it - or otherwise off Patreon. But because he happens to use their IP to advertise directly, this was the outcome.
I’m not a lawyer though, there is probably more at play here.
That makes zero sense. DMCA the offending videos/images then. You can’t extend DMCA to related things that don’t infringe. That makes absolutely no sense.
I can’t load those links so I’m not sure what you are referring to but broadly speaking, I don’t see the issue with using a trademark in the context of advertising that your product is compatible with another product. It’s not fundamentally different than an advertisement for an iPhone case using Apple trademarks to convey that it’s a compatible product when it’s not made by Apple.
Additionally, this seems incorrect because from everything I have seen they specifically refer to the software as being in violation of their IP. I haven’t seen anything where they suggest his use of their trademarks in advertising is the issue.
If he had a generic mod that happened to support Cyberpunk 2077 / that other game that got him DMCA’d, I’d agree. But he’s using that IP, name, etc. to market his product and sell it - the publisher is well within their right to not want to be associated with that.
A DMCA (copyright) troll has a much different connotation than what these two publishers are doing.
“Using the name” would be a trademark violation, not copyright, and that’s not a claim I’ve heard made. It sounds like he’s very clear that it’s his project.
This is exactly DMCA trolling. If he is not using or sharing any IP (game assets, logos, images, characters, code, etc.) in his mods, then he’s not violating their copyright. Making a program that interacts with their IP is not a copyright violation, because he did not distribute any of their IP.
Unless I’m missing something. I haven’t been following this, but it does seem like a perfect example of DMCA abuse.
Even if he’s sharing video footage of the mod working with their game, that’s likely protected. (I think it’s called “Fair Use” in the US?) Nintendo is a massive DMCA troll about that, claiming anyone sharing Let’s Play footage of their games is copyright violation, and throwing out DMCAs like Halloween candy.
Which is why the DMCA is bad legislation; there are no penalties for abuse by copyright holders, and the cost to fight a DMCA takedown notice in the courts is prohibitive. There need to be harsh penalties for companies abusing the system to target content that a reasonable person would say is clearly protected use. Without that, the end result of the DMCA laws were clear, right from the start.
We need digital sovereignty so creators can host their content on local-law abiding servers that ignore America’s corrupt, bullshit DMCA takedown system, and whose monetization can’t be shut down by American payment processors.
He made a mod that uses the IPs name and assets packaged and sold. In violation of the licence agreement of the games assets.
He’s in violation of IP and copyright. It’s really cut and dry here.
He did not make a stand alone product that is fully self sufficient that just happens to support the game. No, he made a direct modification of someone else’s code/product and is selling it with out permission.
He kind of does, doesn’t he? His software supports 40+ games, it’s not just Cyberpunk. There’s no Cyberpunk content in his mod, it’s just software that manipulates other software. It seems insane that people are supporting this as a legit DMCA takedown, and that the response has been to pirate his software like that is somehow now justified by him allegedly violating CDPR IP. I don’t get it at all. If he was distributing a modified version of their game that would be one thing but it’s software that allows users to modify a variety of different games they have a license for, which is obviously something else entirely.
He did violate their IP, just not with the mod itself but the advertising / his posts - at least in my uneducated opinion.
Take these examples:
https://archive.is/xKCtk https://archive.is/bfg53
He’s using their IP to advertise his commercial product - a paid mod that supports their game. This use of IP generally isn’t considered fair use. It’s not the fact that it supports the game that’s a violation, it was the advertising that was more my point.
And then as DMCAs generally go, companies overreact (like Patreon) and overreach. I don’t think CD Project Red could reasonably have done anything if all this was was a footnote that his mod supports CP2077 and the advertising was happening via content creators plugging it - or otherwise off Patreon. But because he happens to use their IP to advertise directly, this was the outcome.
I’m not a lawyer though, there is probably more at play here.
That makes zero sense. DMCA the offending videos/images then. You can’t extend DMCA to related things that don’t infringe. That makes absolutely no sense.
I can’t load those links so I’m not sure what you are referring to but broadly speaking, I don’t see the issue with using a trademark in the context of advertising that your product is compatible with another product. It’s not fundamentally different than an advertisement for an iPhone case using Apple trademarks to convey that it’s a compatible product when it’s not made by Apple. Additionally, this seems incorrect because from everything I have seen they specifically refer to the software as being in violation of their IP. I haven’t seen anything where they suggest his use of their trademarks in advertising is the issue.