The Entertainment Software Association says that DMCA takedown orders issued to the creators of Dying Light mods were a mistake, and should not have been sent.
Apparently the notices were sent by a third-party affiliate of the ESA rather than the organisation itself.
Modders responsible for relatively minor Dying Light mods, such as a tweak that removed the game’s film grain effect, were surprised to receive emails sent on behalf of the ESA that accused them of copyright infringement and demanded the removal of the offending files from download sites.
”ESA was notified this morning that potentially erroneous DMCA notices had been transmitted by one of its vendors,” the ESA said in a statement sent to Ars Technica yesterday. Upon further review, it was determined that the notices should not have been sent and retractions were issued immediately. We regret any inconvenience and have taken steps to avoid similar situations in the future.”
For their part, developer Techland has explained that a recent patch for the open world zombie game that ”blocked cheating by changing game’s data files” was not intended to disrupt the modding community.
”Creating obstacles for modders has never been our intention,” the studio explained, also in a statement to Ars Technica. ”We are now working on a quick patch that will re-enable common tweaks while stopping cheating in the game’s multiplayer mode. At Techland, we have always supported the mod community and loved seeing how our own game can be changed by the players. A big part of the original Dead Island’s success was the passion and creativity of mod-makers from our community. We want the same for Dying Light.”
A good result all round, for both modders and for Techland. Hopefully the ESA can avoid similarly overzealous reactions in the future.
