Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice

conartist6

Sue them for tortious interference

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.

sam_lowry_

One can still install Luanti from F-Droid. It's great little tool to teach coding.

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.

Hnrobert42

There is no cost to Tracer.ai for false positives. There is a cost to them for false negatives, if only just lost revenue. The beatings will persist until morale improves.

testing22321

If there are no consequences for filing a false DMCA takedown, what stops people or companies filing them all the time to take apps from Apple or Microsoft offline?

Aerroon

How do the lawyers filing these bogus claims not end up in prison? How is it not fraud?

shevy-java

These de-facto monopolies such as "Google Play", must be forced open by governments. It can not be that they continue to turn a blind eye to these vile, ruthless and - most importantly - extremely evil action by the giant that was formerly known as Google (now known as adMonster).

whizzter

Someone should copyright the American flag and popular advertised variants of blue/white/red and something alike and start DMCA'ing politicians, maybe that would wake them up to how bad the law is?

VCFundedGenYer

Outsider here. The screenshots are literally Minecraft screenshots. It's a clone, and not a subtle one either. To call this "Baseless" is hilarious.

hnea3ekp5i

Concise and useful, rare combo

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? [0] https://lumendatabase.org/notices/93778051 [1] https://lumendatabase.org/notices/80387573

benjiro29

The problem with DMCA claims is that there are no consequences on misuse. It places all the work on the affected parties to prove their innocence. And suing the fake claim, is years of work and cost. This is why companies like Tracer.AI, ... get away with it. And how the system even gets misused to remove competitors or flat out blackmail. Even worse is when we have hosting companies in Europe, who simply take American DMCA claims for granted because investigating them costs time and money. The entire system is broken (by design?). /Edit: what is with the downvotes? Did i write something that is incorrect?

hexator

There needs to be some sort of penalty for filing frivolous DMCA notices.

wafflemaker

Following that logic, A server containing a replica of Darth Vader and Millennium Falcon should be reason enough to ban Minecraft everywhere.

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.

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.

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.

yubblegum

Wondering if someone can bring a class action lawsuit against tracer.ai and/or their clients.