7 Days To Die DMCA Takedown / Ban on Steam Over Unity Store Acquired Asse

If you have not heard.

7 Days To Die DMCA Takedown / Ban on Steam Over Unity Store Acquired Asset

I guess The Fun Pimps subscribed to a zombie character in the asset store that turned out to have been taken from Tripwire Interactive's Killing Floor Game and sold by some criminal without anyone's knowledge in Unity Asset Store.

7 days to die


killing floor


Now I personally have seen that the good folks at Unity takes copyright infringement 100% seriously and immediately take down assets that have been reported as infringing someone copyright and such.

But still its both sad and shocking when one here about an small indie game company that is just starting out having their first game being hit with DMCA takedown and banned from Steam over an asset that they acquired in the asset store that so many of us love and use gotta hurt.

Part of the story here is the developers had removed their contact information cause of the wild success their game experienced just after successful KickStarter campaign and part of it has to do with them taking to long to replace the infringing work.

Here read about it, learn and as always be vigilant...

7 days to die forum:
http://7daystodie.com/forums/forum/...968-the-recent-dmca-takedown-and-ban-on-steam
http://7daystodie.com/forums/forum/website/website-support/113587-dmca-takedown-filed-on-steam

steam dmca takedown notice
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160808204

interview with tripwires lawyer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_rqw_hkmjA&feature=youtube_gdata

read more about it
http://totalgamingnetwork.com/conte...ive-Filed-DMCA-Takedown-Against-7-Days-to-Die
http://dd.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1opkxl/a_dmca_takedown_notice_has_been_filed_against_7/


i know it sort of happened like 5 days ago, but hey i just found out about it and i didnt read anything here so i thought it would be good to know... and just keep an eye out and help keep the store safe for all...

and by the way if anyone had any doubts about unity engine and what kind of great games can quickly be put together with it they can just look at 7 days to die. cause its quite a fun, addictive and innovative game to play. even in like proof of concept stage/very early access. hey i bought a copy

 

This is not good at all.... To the cretin that is responsible for illegally stealing and selling the asset on the Unity Asset store, may you rot under the devils ass for eternity.

 

Jeez, that's a bit harsh. Think you need some balance in your life?

That said it's many of the assets are highly derivative, when not outright theft of existing work, so you better vet your assets bought in the Asset Store before your game becomes a hit.

I also think whatever 'popularity' that game had that was booted from Steam in liable because it used a well known characterization from an already popular game. If the booted game has any merit then perhaps Steam will allow the developer to replace the asset with another. Then again, maybe not, because what's to prevent 'willful theft' to gain notoriety and then swap out assets once called out on it? Steam would be wise to avoid that type marketing ploy.

 

It's not harsh at all. And no I do not need some balance in my life for what I said. I think the person responsible for this needs serious balance in their life.

 

Sure, but that's a little beside the point. Steam kind of have no reason to not allow the game to swap the content out, but they can't leave the game up in the meantime - that bit isn't their choice.

What surprises me is that the Killing Floor developer hit them with a takedown. I'd have expected a "cease and desist" with a timeframe to come first. Perhaps it did, or there's also something else going on? But also perhaps not.

 

i think what went on was 30-60 days and asset was not replaced, 7d2d did not respond with bunch of lawyers screaming bloody murder it is the same. so its like goliath v david and david was playing around. didnt show up to fight with his slingshot cause he was playing video games.

from what i remember of the twi lawyer interview

as soon as said asset is removed and things are worked out between the parties they should be able to eventually get back on steam

still its lost time, diversion, offset by some free press.

on the side dmca is sort of has chilling effect. i mean the thing didnt even go to court, one party basically files against another, surprise. and your stuff is taken off without you even being able to go to a court and have a judge make a decision. i mean the models could be the same, but perhaps they are not. in past it was judge and jury now its sort being replaced by system that could easily be abused/predatory i think. could it have been some company in some other country, i guess so. dmca is just starting to be played out i think. eventually the big companies will use it to stump out the little guys. basically you get your product pulled you will not be able to have sales. no sales no money even to defend yourself. so you settle / remove the asset, ect. whatever they want to just get by.

i dont know the details of this case, but i can see the law easily being abused to stump out competition, ect.

you sort of see that with patents. the big guys have huge portfolios that they keep spending money on. many times just so they can have mutually assured destruction and to keep some other big guy form going after them. so microsoft makes deal with apple dont go after me i dont go after you. litle guy he gets eaten alive.

same for gaming assets. studios like ea have giant asset portfolios. easy to go after little indie saying your zombie looks like our billion zombies. now it would never have held up and court and if we had looked at the zombie it looks like one from an old 60's movie ect. but it dont matter ,its game over for indie.

i mean did they even do a diff against the model. and so what if they were like similar. you can have two tables look about the same, but two copies independently crafted. its just how tables could look. no knowledge, intent, ect proven. same with dresses, songs, ects. hey it depends on apple v samsung and is edges rounded the same way..

so our systems are like broken / spiked as well... every body knows that the patent system here is a bit of a joke. cause its gamed... i guess he who has deeper pockets wins / defines reality...

7d2d mistake was to take too long to replace. they blew it off without having hire guns representing their interests. then again who would spend $10k / month on a single lawyer when you can replace the asset for far less...

so that is my take on it. not based on this case alone, but sort of summing what i see

perhaps what we should have is our own peoples court and have a group of professionals be like a jury of their own peers should get both models, etc and do a forensic comparison and publish honest opinion / results as to whether its true copyright infringement or not.

i'd be interested to see the results.

personally i think both robbed this guy

Max Schreck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schreck

like first dracula, Nosferatu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu



i ask the jury to look at the pictures carefully, focus on the face and hands. case close public domain... now throw the bums out of my courtroom i gotz go play SoD

 

It's not really that sad.
Bear in mind that the folks that had their IP used without permission is a small indie company as well. More importantly the infringing company (The Fun Pimps) had been contacted, stated they would replace the asset months ago. The DMCA take down wasn't a surprise or out of the blue, it was a last resort. This would have been a complete non-issue if they just acted appropriately when it first came up.

 

Well in that case what else were the TKF guys to do? If they gave plenty of notice and weren't even responded to then this seems pretty reasonable. They genuinely believed they were being infringed, they likely had no idea where the model came from, they tried to talk, they were ignored. THey took the next reasonable step, which was to use the same copyright enforcement system that's available to everyone else.

Likely all the 7D guys had to do in the first place was communicate.

Edit: Yeah, I agree with zombiegorilla, who likely knows more about the situation than I do.

 

Completely unrelated to the issue at hand.

The model was from the SDK. Everyone involved acknowledges this. It isn't a case of something looking similar, this is the same asset. It is 100% cut and dry copyright infringement, that is not in dispute. The issue is that they ignored/drug their feet on removing the asset.

 

yes i read all that and more

but who really knows. other than taking one side or the other at face value. i dont have access to any of the raw information. im not party to it. non of us are

all we can do is like a parrot

no court system as far as i know has ruled on it.

all im saying is putting aside this case which we really know nothing of by what we hear and read which all could be wrong. i mean spin

in general dmca could be abused. cause it sort of hammer before a verdict by judge and jury. you kill the person first and then you try them.

so who knows who is infringing and if there is any infringement at all. i have not heard the full facts. i get nothing but spin all day and night.

ive not studied the models. leading industry experts in the field have not studied the models and spoken from their expertise

so its like hearsay i think at best. sure we have lawyer from one side doing interview, but i see lawyers yapping all the time. one side comes out and says the evidence will show that my client is completely innocent of the bla bla bla. the instant later the other side comes out and says the evidense will show will show that the perpetrator is guilty of the crime beyond a shadow of the facts bla bla bla

so they spin. and show knows non of us will see the evidence. both sides will fight to keep it out of our hands. and will fight to release the evidence that makes their argument win and will fight to hide the evidence that will make their argument lose. here at least we can all examine the bloody murder weapon. we can instead of just taking one side as being truthful and the other side as lieing to us. we can use scientific method /processes to study it and come out our conclusions. we dont have to rely alone of bias testimony.

see science is not based on what we read and hear alone. its based on independent verification. someone publishes something and we are able to verify it on our own and publish our own findings. and have it repeated over and over until we have like a consensus by the community. so we have all these people and they have independently all looked at it and come to a consensus as to whether its true or false or this way or that way.

its not based on what some paid biased spinster tells us.

so i would start by looking at the textures, models, animations. ect. and work from there. then publish the findings. let others do the same and repeat until we have enough people looking at it independently and coming to some agreement as to whether or not it is or not is.

 

honestly i think nobody here has looked at it

parroting is like cheating, copying and like not doing your homework

it cheapens the results. cause nobody did the homework

so instead of repeating get the models and take a look

everyone here should be qualified

lets not be lazy and repeat

that is not good science... and not good way to determine facts.

how do we know do we have it like on tape. i want to see the videos. lots of times parties agree to something not because its factual but because its less expensive then fighting. its just business. no company that i know would spend $50k defending something they could resolve for $1k. they would eat it. but its not because the $1k was the correct thing its becaues its the correct business decision. investors saying im not going to give you $50k for you to waste on fighting on something you could have resolved for $1k and delaying my ability to get my money back while you fight your case... so what have no sales for 1y or more while you fight it out. what if the losing sides wants to appeal.. it could take years and easily pass $100k. its war of attrition... he with bigger pockets wins. usually without even firing shot.

 

Shhhh.... You are starting to look like a ranting crazy person.

http://7daystodie.com/forums/forum/...968-the-recent-dmca-takedown-and-ban-on-steam

 

starting hey you copied the link i posted. surely that is copyright infringement lol

 

I thought everything on the internet was public domain.

 

Well it seems to me like the devs really screwed the pooch how many indies would love to get there games on steam

 

Yeah, this is clearly the fault of both the devs AND the person who initially stole the assets.

 

I wonder what happens if the game is distributed on DVDs. One does not simply get them back, replace the models and produce them again. I assume they didn't know about the asset being stolen and they couldn't know either.

 

Youtube has a video fingerprinting technology built in, you upload a video and it's video and audio fingerprint are checked against a database of copyrighted works. Would a similar approach work for 3D assets?

As there is no way I would be able to check an asset store model is kosher and not ripped out of another game that I am unaware of.

 

Without people registering their raw assets, I doubt it would be easy - simply put how do you get access to the models before they are ripped to know they are ripped?

 

Pretty unfortunate.

On a daily basis I feel less inclined to use the asset store.

 

They were told it was stolen before the game was released, when it was shown off in a video. They told Tripwire that it was just being used as a placeholder asset and would be replaced but they never replaced it. Sure they probably had no idea when they first got the asset but they had plenty of time to replace it before they released the game.

 

All this typing, isn't it simple?

Guy who uploaded stolen asset to unity store = Bad guy. You scum.

Guy who bought asset from unity store and used in game = Victim. Sorry to hear that.

Tripwire = Overreacting. Chill.

Steam = Too knee Jerk. Chill dudes.

Unity = Come on guys. Get it together.

 

They would be a victim if they had no clue it was a stolen asset until now. That was not the case, Tripwire had contacted them long before the game was released and tried to resolve the issue amicably, however the 7d2d guys didn't bother to solve this making them just as liable as the guy who sold the asset in the first place.

Tripwire are not overreacting, they're perfectly within their rights to start legal action over copyright infringement and did not have to try and be civil about it when they first contacted the devs about the stolen asset. As the devs refused to comply with polite requests to change it they had no choice but to issue a DMCA and start legal action.

Steam are also not being "too knee jerk" or need to "chill." The game uses stolen assets so it breaks their Terms Of Service and it had to be removed from sale. That's not only within their rights but standard operating procedure. Allowing it to carry on being sold with he stolen asset would cause major damage to the services reputation and it would also make them legally liable.

 

No. With the facts available it appears that Tripwire acted with restraint. They gave The Fun Pumps time to sort it out, but they didn't. Steam did the right thing.

 

This could not come at a worse time. Alpha 2 is almost ready to be released!!! Couldn't the killing floor guys at least just have waited until that happened.

Now there is gonna be a delay

 

Agreed. It appears they were notified about it quite a while ago. What happened to The Fun Pimps sucks, but they had plenty of time to sort it out, Tripwire notified Steam as a last resort.

 

It's really unbelivable that the fun pimps didn't get rid of the model as soon as they knew, I don't feel sorry for them one bit. They would have made whatever it cost to make the model back 100x over

 

Yes the 7D guys are a victim, but that doesn't absolve them of responsibility for the way the handled it after they became aware of it.

You seem to be overlooking the fact that the Tripwire guys are also victims here. After all, they're the people who've had their work stolen. Why are they "overreacting" by taking reasonable steps to protect their own work?

I've no idea what Tripwire are like, but to be honest if I were one of the 7D guys I think the first thing I'd have done is ask Tripwire if they would consider coming to a legitimate licensing arrangement. Anything mutually agreeable that cost 7D less than acquiring and integrating a new model would have been mutually beneficial.

 

Good point. They are both indies, and really they both pretty much got screwed by the same person who sold Tripwire's asset. There was some common ground to work with by communicating with Tripwire instead of delaying.

 

@You guys, I heard a different story. I heard that they were never given notice and their game was abruptly pulled from steam.

 

There were notified first by Unity when asset was pulled, then later by Tripwire.

Several months ago they in a discussion with Tripwire, they agreed to remove the asset. Tripwire waited. When they tried to follow up again, FP had removed all their contact information. No way to contact them again, they filed DMCA notice.

Fun Pimps have a apologized for taking too long to remove the asset and pull the videos.

This is the story, regardless of what "you heard". All of the this has been publicly confirmed by all the parties involved.

Regardless, even if they claimed they hadn't been contacted (which they have already said they have), they were notified by Unity when asset was pulled. So they have known since that date.

 

hey its back on steam

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160808204&searchtext=7+days+to+die

alpha 2 will be out soon

http://7daystodie.com/alpha-2-coming-soon/



just in time for this year much anticipated killing floor halloween event
http://steamcommunity.com/app/1250/discussions/0/810939350836741342/

 

Bottom line, is that it could have been much worse.

At this point no one is filing lawsuits, and they have worked things out with steam, when they asset is removed they can resume business. It's all a very fair and reasonable outcome. Sure it could have been a complete non-issue if they wouldn't have dragged their feet, but any damage to any party is minimal at best, and more than likely the story has given them publicity.

There is a lesson here, and that is prepare for success. If their game had been another unnoticed indie zombie game, probably nothing would have happened. Because it was successful, they had to deal with issues that surface. The stolen asset thing sucks for them. It could have been avoided by creating their own assets. Maybe not a option for them, but is a guarantee of source.

 

Very cool.

 

Not really. Putting stolen models on the asset store is a serious coyright infringement and not trivial.
The words Amon chose are certainly no legal terminology but the ide behind them is pretty much correct, in my book.

 

oK Ok. Well. Guess it's over and done now.

 

I think I bought this asset at some point, man thankfully I went with a custom beastie instead of the KF Zombeh ... or am I just imaginging that? Don't want to mention names without facts, but iirc, wasn't this part of a survival template?

 

In defense of the Unity Asset Store, I have seen items in violation of copyright on a number of sites. You can also run into the same problem when you hire someone to develop an item for you, whether it be artwork or code.

This isn't limited to video games. I just recently read an article on Consumerist about a company who created copies of an artist's Christmas ornaments and sold them in violation of copyright.

Nor is this just limited to "smaller" companies like Unity. Walmart has had to pull items in the past for copyright infringement.

 

The Steam GreenLight part of this story seems to be solved, their page is currently available, and the video with the related model was removed from YouTube:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160808204

NB : This game seems interesting...

EDIT : It's too bad nobody has saved a screen-shot of the steam dmca takedown notice, I would be interested to know how Steam has communicated to their customer and already buyers.

 

Just for those who are curious like me about how Steam handle this type of situation, I've found that on http://web.archive.org:
History of the page :
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160808204

Unfortunately, it seems that only the Romanian and Czech version of the Steam Takedown messages were archived.
http://web.archive.org/web/20131023...ity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160808204
http://web.archive.org/web/20131024...ity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160808204

Google translation :

I would be interested to know if customers (early adopters who paid a pre-order) have received a message from Steam, if they were re-credited or if Steam as waited for the problem being solved before contacting customers...

Any information about that could be interesting from a developer point of view.

 

** deleted, double post **

 

Yea that is the notice that we all saw when this thread started (or before if you were following it). A DMCA takedown notice is a document that the site/distributor/host/whatever receives, they don't typically don't post that. Steam just posts that the content is removed.

I don't believe it has ever been available for purchase or pre-order via Steam. There were "pre-orders" via Kickstarter and such, but that is entirely on the Fun Pimps side. So, I am fairly sure that there are no Steam "customers" for the game as it has never been released on Steam, just green-lit.

 

Not first time to happen, won't be the last.
There is always ppl selling stolen 3d models everywhere... UT still have a lot to learn to prevent this.

 

I'm willing to bet that the person who put it on the asset store was the creator of the asset. Not Tripwire, but the actual artist. He may or may not have been under contract/NDA when he performed the work, and therefore Tripwire may or may not actually have the right to request a DCMA takedown. I'd be very curious to see what the original artist has to say.

 

Do you really expect the people approving the assets to be able to know every game model ever made?

 

That is completely random speculation with no basis in reality.
Why would you guess/assume they didn't create their own models? NDA has nothing to do with copyright. If they did hire a third party and their contract didn't specify ownership, they still own it (work for hire). They had an their lawyer (experienced with both game and digital ip) file, it is a pretty safe bet he verified ownership. (he is a real world lawyer not a pretend internet one). Why does it matter what they artist says? Presumably they are part of the team, and the Tripwire has already issued statements. The story is over.

I don't get why people are so determined to blame the victim here.

 

Indeed. Heh.. especially considering it was a zombie, there are a lot of zombie games. Some will get by on occasion. As long as there are people willing to rip-off/take advantage of others there will be chance it will happen.

 

Okay, $50. Burden of proof is on you.