We DMCA-ed our own game because it got hijacked by publisher | Hacker News Reader

We DMCA-ed our own game because it got hijacked by publisher

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Here's the game in question: https://store.steampowered.com/app/505740/Eximius_Seize_the_...

And the announcement on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/games/505740/announcements/detail...

Hey y'all. (At least in USA) ask for a provision awarding attorneys fees and costs to prevailing party in the event of a dispute over major contracts.

Disputes happen less frequently, go faster, settle more often, and are easier to fund if necessary.

Suspect parties that won't sign it (or at least discuss their reasons).

Steam/Valve has a great PR opportunity here. They could pay out all the money to the indie developer and then use their legal might to sue the publisher to recover the stolen funds.

That would come perilously close to tortious interference. They would have no standing to do so, any more than withholding your funds because you didn't pay your rent.

Couldn't the developer contract with Valve to allow that to happen?

the contract is almost certainly with the publisher, not the developer.

Their standing would come from the fact that they had to refund the indie developer and therefore are now in need of funds to cover that expense incurred because of the publishers actions.

Any competent attorney (and realize that not for one moment do I have any sympathy for the publisher, who sounds like a complete garbage person) would turn around and say "You had no obligation to do so, and your desire to do so for PR purposes or otherwise in no way creates an obligation for me to reimburse you".

And legally, they'd be entirely right.

I’m super confused on what a publisher does in this case. seems all they did was release on steam? Can’t any dev do the same? What was the purpose of the publisher? (Did I miss something?)

Usually the publisher acts like a movie producer, in theory, they get all the marketing and distribution setup and usually also help either raise or provide initial funding for the venture. In this case it seems like they didn't do much at all.

This seems like the wrong tool for the job.

They seem to have good reasons for doing what they did. So I don't fault them, but this should be a contract dispute/fraud.

> We took legal action, they ignored attorney's demand to return our app id. Can't afford to escalate further because we're already few months in debt. We are 100% in the correct side of the law and had full rights. But nothing could be done.

It seems they tried that route but then resorted to DMCA when the money for lawyers ran out.

The developer seems to agree, “The law defaults to letting them get away unless you can pay several year worth of salaries and wait several months”. But when you’re out of other options, you do what you can.

Isn’t it the contract which gives the publisher rights to publish the game? If the publisher hasn’t executed their side of the contract, wouldn’t that mean that they don’t have rights to the game? DMCA sounds like an appropriate tool, then.

From what I understand, the way a breached contract gets handled varies a lot from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and I’m no expert.

The publisher is UK based, as far as I'm aware contract law is somewhat similar in the US.

The DMCA isn't against the publisher as I understand, its against the sites actually selling the game.

> The DMCA isn't against the publisher as I understand, its against the sites actually selling the game.

Well, yes, that's how DMCA takedown notices work. If Lex Luthor posts my video on YouTube, I don't send the DMCA takedown notice to Lex Luthor, I send the DMCA takedown notice to YouTube. Lex Luthor has no responsibility to accept DMCA takedown notices, and there's no way to send them to him.

The sequence is (1) publisher breaches contract (2) developer voids contract in response (3) publisher no longer has right to distribute game (4) DMCA takedown notice. This makes sense to me, but again, I'm not a legal expert and I'm willing to entertain arguments. I feel like the only thing in question here is whether the contract was voided properly, and whether it could be voided in the first place.

My point is, is that the publisher isn't involved in the prices at all, which as they are the wrong doer suggests to me that this is indeed the wrong tool.

Its like Superman going after Lex Luther's office supplier, rather than destroying his underground lair.

I think you may misunderstand what a DMCA takedown notice is, or how they are used.

You send DMCA takedown notices to innocent parties, that's how they work, that's how they're designed to work, that's the only way they work at all. If you want to send something to a guilty party then you send a lawsuit instead.

You can't send a DMCA takedown notice to Lex Luthor's office supplier, because the office supplier doesn't claim DMCA safe harbor. YouTube does, Steam does, so you can send DMCA takedown notices to Steam and YouTube. You can't send DMCA takedown notices to Lex Luthor, his office supplier, or the publisher at fault here.

In effect, the DMCA takedown notice is just a way of telling YouTube, "Lex Luthor does not have the rights to this video." This is not going after YouTube in any meaningful way. This is exactly what the DMCA is designed to do... prevent YouTube or Steam from being targets of lawsuits. Because Steam accepts DMCA takedown notices, they are protected from certain lawsuits for copyright infringment. DMCA takedown is a process where you tell Steam about third-party copyright infringement, and they remove the content and this clears Steam of liability.

When Lex Luthor posts my video on YouTube, I can do two things: I can send a DMCA to YouTube and I can sue Lex Luthor. Suing Lex Luthor is expensive, so I start with the DMCA takedown notice to YouTube.

Ok then its like Superman sending DMCA takedown notices to Youtube over Lex Luther's unauthorised use of Superman's S. Rather than destroying the space laser that's about to destroy the earth. :P

No, Superman's S would be covered by trademark. Sending DMCA takedown notices in response to trademark violations may expose you to liability under DMCA section 512(f).

It seems like you have an objection to the DMCA, but the story about space lasers is a bit hard to understand. I'm not sure what your complaint is. The reason I chose "Lex Luthor" is because choosing a name makes it easier to understand hypothetical scenarios (instead of using them/they everywhere, or "the infringing party"), and because he took forty cakes, and that's as many as four tens.

My point is that you should be going after the actual problem, rather then messing round with the periphery. The DMCA is designed to combat a diffuse mass of people that you can't really target directly. The publisher like the gigantic space laser is one large target. Target it directly.

To torture another metaphor, this may only be one starfighter against a star destroyer, in that case, if you don't have an ion canon, kamikazing the shield generators is an option, but not your first choice.

Don't ask me what the DMCA is in that metaphor :P

in the DMCA case, you cease their profit-making pipelines, so that when you go for the actual problem, the defenders have less reason to defend (and thus, less incentive to throw more money into the defense). Theres a big difference in defending something that brings in 100k/yr, versus something that’s been DMCA’d everywhere relevant, and can’t be sold (is there any reason left to continue defending, unless you expect to win & get sales rights back?)

For any weaker party, targetting the problem itself is too expensive to start with, especially if the defendant is the only one currently making money off the product (the accuser only has external funds to work with, no matter how valuable the product is/was, while the defender has both product value and external funds; DMCA can remove one of those revenue streams)

> Don't ask me what the DMCA is in that metaphor :P

If you are basing your argument on a metaphor but can't explain the metaphor then maybe it's time to step back and reevaluate your argument. "Target it directly" is Hollywood advice, it's insane to use that as your only legal strategy.

Possibly a better story...

Lex Luthor sends Superman a video threatening the earth. Superman posts that video to YouTube, hoping to garner public support for his upcoming moon mission.

Lex Luthor sends a DCMA takedown to YouTube alleging that he owns the rights to the video and that Superman had no right to post it.

Hi there. I'm the original posted of the Reddit thread. I made an account here just to tell you this.

You are exactly spot on in the order of happening below. (1) publisher breaches contract (2) developer voids contract in response (3) publisher no longer has right to distribute game (4) DMCA takedown notice.

And yes contract was voided properly through multiple notices and failure to adhere to cure period. These were the life saving clauses that wasn't in the original contract but we squeezed it in last few rounds of negotiation.

It appears to have been the developers only option as the legal route to resolving the problem would cripple them financially.

So perhaps not the right tool, but certainly an effective one.

Well, the right step outside of legal battle would be updating the game to say that the publisher doesn't pay up.

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