Game Preservation Advocates Find a Particularly Frustrating Opponent

There have been countless video games made over the years — and that’s an accurate description, because there are plenty of early games that are now considered lost media. The earlier perspective on video games as disposable entertainment means that plenty of older titles have been lost over the years, similar to how plenty of classic films from the early days of the medium simply no longer exist in any viable and commercial way. Especially if you consider this media to be an art form, it can be a very frustrating reality.

It’s also something that groups like the Video Game History Foundation have been combating, with their efforts to catalog and protect gaming history going above and beyond what many fans are capable of. That includes facing off with a copyright troll who had been using a false ownership of an obscure title to keep people from discovering it in the modern era. It’s a frustrating tactic, but the VGHF has found a way to combat it.

How Cookie’s Bustle Became The Target Of A Copyright Fight

Game preservation is a tricky challenge already, and proponents of the movement have found a new opponent in online trolls. The Video Game History Foundation is one of many organizations around the world that are dedicated to preserving gaming as an art form and making sure no titles simply fall through the cracks of history. This includes Cookie’s Bustle, a little-known Japanese point-and-click adventure game from 1999. The game received a physical print run in 1999 but is now considered an “orphan work” because there isn’t a clear owner of the IP.

However, for several years, the company Graceware Inc. has claimed copyright ownership of the game, issuing DMCA takedown notices related to any online content regarding the game. Even compared to similar takedown requests, gamers and content creators online noted how unusually fast and aggressive these takedown requests have been. This includes the VGHF, which got such a takedown notice after it posted about getting a copy of the game donated to its collection. After they received multiple DMCA takedown notices, the game preservation company responded with their legal team and discovered that Graceware didn’t actually own the rights to Cookie’s Bustle.

In fact, Graceware doesn’t even seem to be a real company, with no digital footprint or services offered. The owner, going by the name Brandon White, seemingly had been using Interoco to make it appear like he owned the copyright, justifying the DMCA takedown notices in the eyes of large platforms that simply followed through with the takedowns. In reality, he simply owns the current trademark, which isn’t the same as owning the copyright to the IP. When confronted with the need to provide evidence of his copyright ownership, Graceware went dark. “Cookie’s Bustle has finally been freed from copyright troll hell,” VGHF explained in a blog post laying out the situation, noting that Graceware’s DMCA takedowns may have been someone trolling others.

Why Game Preservation Is Important Enough To Fight For

As the Video Game History Foundation notes in their post, roughly half of game and software titles released before 1995 are considered orphan works. There’s no clear owner of the titles, which were released long before many considered game design to be a form of artistic expression. This means the games can’t be properly rereleased or preserved, allowing many of them to simply fade away and be forgotten. Even if they do get preserved in some manner, copyright trolls can argue that they own the rights and issue complaints about the games.

Whether it’s for profit or just fun, these content trolls are making it more difficult for game preservationists to fully honor the spirit and legacy of the medium. It’s promising to see advancements made in the fight for game preservation, as no one’s hard work and creative intent should just be forgotten or used as fodder for frivolous takedowns. Doing that might be an easy way to use the current digital landscape to frustrate people, but it also targets the enjoyment people find in older titles and reportedly targets people who were uploading Let’s Plays of the game or even creating their own fan art based on the game.

Game preservation is an important aspect of the medium’s history. It’s something legendary creators like Shigeru Miyamoto have been open about and has led to organizations like VGHF, Game Preservation Society, and GOG.com working hard to ensure players retain access to the games they paid for — and that the creatives behind them still have a connection to their work. It’s frustrating to see people using the system to make things more difficult for others, but VGHF’s victory over Graceware highlights how game preservation has ways to ensure it carries on.