Activision Abuses DMCA To Take Knock Indie Game Entirely Off Steam

Reader He Who Has No Name writes: We've seen brain-dead, overzealous, and entirely over-automated DMCA takedown requests bring down music and videos, but this may be the first case of an entire video game being knocked out. Earlier today David Prassel, creator of Trek Industries and developer of the not-without-controversy ORION: Dino Horde / Prelude and the early-access Guardians of ORION, posted that his current project had been entirely removed from Steam after a questionable DMCA allegation from Activision. Prassel explains further, "We've made Steam our primary platform, but this has put a definite scare into us going forward considering our entire livelihood can be pulled without a moment's notice, without any warning or proper verification. I cannot even confirm that the representative from Activision is a real person as absolutely no results pop up in any of my searches." Image comparisons against at least two of the weapon models claimed to be infringing were posted by Prassel and in at least one thread on a forum.
What's more, it appears Activision is alleging not a vertex-for-vertex and texel-for-texel theft and duplication of the Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3 2D -- 3D art assets, but in fact an infringing artistic similarity and design of separately created art content -- something that the DMCA does not cover (and which more would likely fall under copyright or possibly trade dress). Since this takedown falls directly in the middle of the Steam Summer Sale -- which probably is not a coincidence -- it will profoundly impact Trek Industry's potential sales.Polygon has more details.

Comments

Re:Taken from reddit comments

[Khyber]

"The dev behind Orion has a sordid history and a history of lying"

No, he has a sordid history of parodying EVERYTHING and usually FAILING.

"Take a look at this:
http://i.imgur.com/ZQeBNGs.png
Direct copy of CoD assets, like it or not."

Activision doesn't own the design of that top rail. In fact, it's just a knockoff of the top rail on an AR-15/M-16. The CLOSEST thing you might get is on textures, but even then, some of those are easily shown to be ripped from far earlier games (texture on the barrel shroud in CoD comes out of ROTT, which came out several years earlier.)

Activision doesn't own the design to the bullpup stock, either. The specific design they're pointing out THEY RIPPED FROM RUSSIANS which used it in earlier SV versions of various sniper and infantry rifles (that shitty square back gas block.)

Activision also ripped assets from various other industries thinking we wouldn't notice. Activision's top-rail was already seen in a 2011 porno sci-fi movie called Horizon.

You post anonymously because you don't have the facts and are shilling for Activision when they've got no case. If they had a case, they wouldn't have used the DMCA, they'd have sued instead as prior legal precedent shows.