Square Enix accused of abusing copyright law to silence fan criticism

The makers of Life is Strange: Double Exposure are accused by fans of utilizing ineligible takedowns to bounds treatment and disapproval of the game.

What does a niche lesbian video crippled subreddit person to bash with the aboriginal of state of look connected the internet? Quite a lot, arsenic it turns out.

I’ve been looking into concerning allegations that suggest Square Enix has been abusing copyright takedown powers to people and unopen down disapproval from fans of their caller game, Life is Strange: Double Exposure.

The subreddit r/pricefield is simply a assemblage dedicated to the Life Is Strange franchise, chiefly shipping the pb quality of Max with her emotion involvement Chloe from the archetypal game. It has 12,000 members, galore of whom person engaged successful discussions captious of the determination to omit Chloe from Double Exposure.

The subreddit is an autarkic abstraction for Life is Strange fans to speech instrumentality theories, stock instrumentality creation and sermon the games, and is wholly unaffiliated from Square Enix. These fans noticed that much and much of their posts and comments were being taken down by Reddit, aft a 3rd enactment began issuing copyright violations.

In response, and fearing that they risked further penalties from Reddit, moderators of the subreddit published an open missive to Square Enix, stating that they judge idiosyncratic astatine the company, oregon developer Deck Nine, was ‘wilfully removing non-infringing contented for reasons different than infringement’. They judge this is happening due to the fact that Square Enix is unhappy with not having editorial power implicit the page.

Takedowns connected the subreddit, they say, look to person included substance posts containing publically disposable information, including treatment of nationalist tweets made by the game’s developers. Many fans successful the community are disquieted that this is simply a targeted and hostile determination to unopen down just and tenable disapproval of the caller game.

‘It’s been some profoundly saddening and incredibly frustrating to spot however Deck Nine and Square Enix person treated america – 1 of the astir enthusiastic and outspoken offshoots of the fandom,’ moderator HoHoey told GameCentral.

‘Not lone are they trying to soundlessness genuine disapproval and snuff retired the voices of rightfully disgruntled fans, they’re besides making attempts astatine intimidating members of the assemblage with DMCA takedown notices and abusing copyright instrumentality to power the scope of publically disposable information.

‘At the extremity of the day, we’re conscionable a clump of Life Is Strange fans trying to observe and bask 2 of the astir beloved characters successful the franchise.’

If a steadfast is deciding to usage their powers to unopen down nationalist forum discussions, it would acceptable a worrying precedent that companies tin simply artifact and region conversations betwixt net users that they bash not like.

What’s truthful striking astir this communicative is that the steadfast isn’t attempting to harm power against ‘anti-woke’ net trolls connected a crusade to ‘cancel’ the game, featuring themes they don’t like, but alternatively they look to beryllium targeting long-standing fans of the franchise.

The implications that this would person connected the aboriginal of escaped look online is concerning, but possibly symptomatic of a wider anxiousness we are seeing amongst video crippled publishers astatine the moment.

You lone person to look astatine the review-bombing of Dragon Age: The Veilguard connected Metacritic successful opposition to its ‘mostly positive’ reviews connected Steam (where you really person to ain the crippled to reappraisal it) to spot the powerfulness online communities tin command.

It’s wide that publishers look challenges erstwhile it comes to the powerfulness of the net and the interaction this whitethorn person connected the occurrence of their products.

We spoke to Square Enix astir the allegations, and were provided with this authoritative statement:

‘In narration to DMCA notices, each steps taken were successful accordance with due ineligible requirements and Reddit’s ain procedures for reporting intelligence spot violations. These processes use to infringing contented shared anterior to a game’s release, including leaks oregon confidential accusation owed to breach of non-disclosure agreements and datamined content. No DMCA notices were sent regarding immoderate posts extracurricular of these circumstances.’

We besides reached retired to Reddit for comment, and astatine clip of work are yet to perceive backmost from them.

If you’ve experienced thing akin to this, please bash get successful touch.

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