Games

Read a little bit about this on the wiki page. It really sounds like some guy/company just lied to a regulatory body and then that org sent DMCA's out ~for~ them.

So, that's just the thing—to a layperson, it seemed like they were registered with an actual regulatory body, but they were emphatically not. There are two parts to this: INTEROCO and Ukie. Here are the core bits of info:

INTEROCO

Graceware's main support for their takedown notices has been a series of registrations filed by Brandon White through INTEROCO "Copyright Office" in 2021. These "registrations" claim ownership for a variety of aspects of Cookie's Bustle, including the source code, game concept, and character designs.

[...]

But here's the thing: These are not real copyright registrations, and INTEROCO is not a government agency.

INTEROCO is a private company in Germany that bills itself as a "full-automated electronic depository." It is effectively a digital version of mailing yourself a letter to get it date-stamped by the Post Office, a comparison that INTEROCO explicitly makes on their About Us page.

In theory, authors and creators could use INTEROCO to prove that they published a work on a specific date. However, it would be absurd to claim that depositing a copy of a work that's already been published means that you own the rights to it. It would be like mailing yourself a cartridge of Super Mario Bros., then claiming the postmarked envelope is proof you control the copyright to Super Mario Bros. A deposit on INTEROCO for a previously copyrighted work—such as the ones made by Brandon White—is effectively meaningless.

Ukie

Graceware's takedown notices are filed on their behalf by Ukie, the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment. Ukie is the United Kingdom's largest video game trade organization, representing and providing professional services for over 2000 member companies. One of those services, according to Ukie, is free takedown requests for infringing use of copyrighted materials. Graceware is a member of Ukie and appears to use that service.

[...]

As official as it sounds to have a major trade organization sending takedowns for Graceware, the barrier to joining Ukie and using their legal services is shockingly low. Membership in Ukie costs less than £1000 per year for small companies. So if you have £60 a month, it looks like you can get the UK's largest gaming trade organization to send free takedown notices on your behalf.

[...]

Web Capio offers "real-time" IP protection services as a frontline defense against piracy and data leaks. By "real-time," what they mean is that they scrape the web for potentially infringing content and, according to their marketing materials, send out "automated takedown notices."

Notably, they have bragged that compared to other takedown services, they do not require the majority of their takedowns to be verified by a human.

In other words, Web Capio uses bots to send bulk takedown requests to websites, seemingly without confirming whether they are valid or appropriate. This would explain the large number of spurious takedowns related to Cookie's Bustle that have been reported.

The TL;DR is that the purported "copyright registrations" are no such thing, and the UK trade organization they are a member of (which clearly didn't do its due diligence to ensure they actually held the rights they claimed) is happy to blast out completely automated takedowns for anyone who pays £630+VAT per year to be a member.

I didn't get into the US trademarks here, but basically, they made provisionary applications for lapsed trademarks, but even if those trademarks are ever granted (which they have not been), it would have no bearing on matters of copyright.

Yup, from what I can tell! Haven't played it myself yet, though.