Luanti's Android app pulled from Google Play over baseless AI-generated DMCA notice
Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice
Luanti, the open-source voxel game-creation platform formerly known as Minetest, has been removed from the Google Play Store due to a DMCA notice filed by Tracer.AI on behalf of Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of Minecraft. The notice cites no specific assets, and Luanti contains no proprietary code or assets. This is the second such notice from Tracer.AI; a similar one in 2023 took 46 days to resolve. Luanti has submitted a counter-notice and calls for human verification of takedowns and better compliance by Google.
If a company can repeatedly submit the same DMCA notice with no explanation or evidence, taking projects down for months at a time, the system is broken.
- SwellJoe
I know this isn't the point but this post is a master class in how to inform readers when you expect people from outside your community to read it.
It explains what every element is, concisely but clearly. I now know exactly what Luanti is, who all the actors are in this conflict, and what the conflict is about. It clearly conveys the who, what, when, where and why of the situation.
Also, DMCA is a damned mess, with the worst people in the world profiting from it and bullying small creators. There really should be better mechanisms to defend oneself from spurious claims.
- jmward01
The answer here is simple: If you submit a content strike you must provide a bond. If the content strike is reversed the bond is used to pay damages. The argument of 'people must review' is really just an argument of cost. The amount of content on the web makes it impractical to pay that upfront but a bond makes it manageable.
- vintermann
> We received a similar notice from the same company in 2023 and successfully appealed against it. This company also filed a similar notice this year against an indie game with similar voxel art style by the name of Allumeria.
They'll backtrack and apologize - again.
At some point, the pathway for Microsoft to regain some of the goodwill associated with Minecraft is to fire the senior lawyer most responsible for sending out these notices.
- peri-cl
I'm confused why the DMCA sender, Tracer AI, claims Vanuatu jurisdiction in the linked DMCA claim[0]. In separate recent claims, they have claimed US jurisdiction[1]. Is this possibly fraud?
- hexator
There needs to be some sort of penalty for filing frivolous DMCA notices.
- mysterydip
Could the sequence of events be:
1) open source project publishes source
2) AI scrapes source
3) AI generates code for proprietary game similar to that of the source
4) AI tool scans jar files and finds similar code, triggers copyright violation
- matheusmoreira
It's just the usual corporate censorship via "good faith" DMCA notices that nobody but other corporations can afford to actually fight.
- mortsnort
The game's own website describes it as an "open source alternative to Minecraft".
Frivolous or not, MS has financial incentive to try to keep this game offline. I think this is going as intended from MS's POV.