Alex Mauer Gets Another Game Taken Down From Steam Via DMCA As She Sends Imagos' Lawyer Death Threats

from the whoo-boy dept

Last month, we discussed a strange spate of DMCA notices going out from Alex Mauer, a video game music composer. Through her DMCA blitz, she managed to get a game removed from Steam, as well as getting several DMCA strikes against several YouTubers that had covered that game, all apparently as a result of a contract dispute she had with Imagos Softworks and her general inability to understand contractual language and copyright law. The tone of that post was justifiably critical, but some are now concerned that there is a well-being issue at hand. For starters, Mauer has now targeted a second game via DMCA takedown and has managed to get Steam to remove the game from its listings.

A copyright claim by a composer with a tendency to attract legal drama has led Steam to remove the game River City Ransom: Underground. The developers are disputing the claim and say they expect the game to be back on Steam at some point in the future.

On Friday, July 14th, Steam removed River City Ransom: Underground due to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claim filed by composer Alex Mauer. In the claim, Mauer said that music she produced for the game was being used without her permission.

Mauer goes on to note that she doesn't have any documentation of her arrangement with Conatus Creative, developers of the game, but that this actually strengthens her claim, reasoning that if her music appears in the game and there is no written permission, it's copyright infringement. That seemingly sensical stance is rebutted, however, by Conatus, who does claim to have documentation proving its side of the argument.

Let me make it absolutely clear – Alex Mauer’s claim that the game violates her copyright is false. She is a co-creator of the music, with Dino Lionetti and Rich Vreeland. Our written license agreement is with Rich, who subcontracted Alex and Dino. When Rich offered to pay Alex an equal share of the music fee for her contribution to the game soundtrack, she emailed back: “oh that's awesome man i'm all for it thanks!” Rich has shown us the documentation that Alex was paid in full.

Our lawyers advise us that there is no legal basis for Alex’s DMCA take-down claims. That’s undeniable by anyone except Alex. But being legally right is only half the story – as a practical matter, the costs of legal action would put console development plans on hold, perhaps indefinitely. We don’t have any interest in spending our time and our energy dealing with this matter further.

So, we’re swapping out the soundtrack. When it’s completed, we hope that it will delight you, and we hope that you keep taking a chance on independent games, on Kickstarter projects, and on all labors of love. They’re worth it.

If all of that is true, and only one side of this fight is claiming to have documented evidence of their position, you can once again see how reckless abuse of the DMCA system can be undertaken by a party that is blatantly in the wrong as a matter of copyright law, while at the same time forcing their targets into unwanted actions due to the costs of the legal action. This, it goes without saying, cannot be what copyright is supposed to be for. If someone can falsely file DMCA notices with this kind of ignorant alacrity, where the most charitable reading of the situation is that Mauer is flatly confused about copyright and contract law, and where the more realistic reading is that she is running a DMCA extortion program, and there are no serious consequences for that abuse, then the DMCA system is plainly broken.

But there are also more serious accusations flying around as part of this, including the legal staff for Imagos, Mauer's initial DMCA target, being on the receiving end of death threats from her.

After the publication of this story, several people pointed us to a message from Imagos Softworks’ lawyer, Leonard French, claiming that Mauer had sent him death threats. We reached out to Mauer about this and she confirmed that it was true. She said that she had been receiving her own set of threats in the wake of claims by French and other YouTubers, which she reported to the police. “The police told me it was ok for these people to make death threats to me because of freedom of speech,” she said in a private Twitter message. “So my immediate response was to issue death threats to the people who started the defamation crusade against me.”

First, making death threats is a crime, if they are truly serious death threats. I doubt a law enforcement officer told her they are simply "ok because of freedom of speech." And to then take that as a reason to send more death threats in reply is petulant at best.

Regardless, it should go without saying that through punishment or otherwise, Mauer's DMCA abuse needs to stop.

Filed Under: alex mauer, censorship, contract dispute, copyright, death threats, dmca
Companies: conatus creative

Game Music Composer Goes On DMCA Blitz Against Innocent YouTubers Over Contract Dispute With Game Publisher

from the hostage-negotiations dept

Stories about both the abuse of the DMCA process and the peril YouTubers regularly find themselves subject to by way of intellectual property laws are both legion, but to see the truely egregious nature of the abuse of this sort of thing, it takes a story about them intersecting. We appear to have such a story on our hands in the form of a music composer hired to work on a video game that then began sending DMCA notices to YouTubers over a contractual dispute with the game publisher. This story weaves a strange path, so let's dig in.

Alex Mauer is a digital composer. She was hired to do contract work by Imagos Softworks, the developers of Starr Mazer: DSP. That game had been available for early access on Steam, but is still down at the time of this writing. The reason for that is that Mauer sent Steam a DMCA notice for the game, claiming that it used her music without proper payment. Mauer and Imagos are in the middle of a fairly heated contract dispute, one which Imagos has been taking public with explanations of what happened and why the claim is not true.

When you have dug into enough of these sorts of things, you begin to have a good sense for what's going on based on everyone's responses. Imagos' response is solely from its perspective, so it is not to be taken as the final word on the matter, but claims this detailed tend to be more common from those on the right side of things. Despite having been paid roughly $35,000 for her work on the game as a contract for hire, Mauer is currently claiming that Imagos owes her another $10,000. Even if that were true, the rights for the music in the contract were transferred to Imagos, making the DMCA claim against the game inappropriate. Through it all, Imagos claims to have attempted to resolve this with Mauer on several occasions only to be refused, while also going so far as to strip her music from the game and replacing it with temporary placeholder music.

But Mauer is apparently still unsatisfied. As I mentioned above, you can often get a sense of which side of an issue is on the firmest ground by how they behave. Well, Mauer's behavior in the past week has amounted to levying DMCA claims against every YouTuber showing off Starr Mazer: DSP footage that included her music. Even with the obvious Fair Use defense these YouTubers would have, that isn't even the most infuriating aspect of the tactic. No, that title belongs to Mauer suggesting to the YouTubers that she was launching the DMCA claims to raise awareness of the contract dispute and would rescind them if the YouTubers would give some hell to Imagos instead.

According to Ms. Mauer, Imagos Softworks owes her US$ 10,000 “for unpaid music work” (on Starr Mazer: DSP) and she is trying to use the DMCA strikes as a way to generate awareness about her situation. Sadly, this isn’t the intended purpose of the copyright strikes system, and innocent content creators are being punished when their only involvement in the matter has been that they published videos covering the independent roguelike shooter.

Well-known YouTuber SidAlpha even reached out to Mauer on behalf of his smaller peers to try to figure out what the hell was going on and received the following reply.

The fact that TemmieNeko is directing her complaints to me instead of the developer is a problem. This seems to be the general response of those who were hit with DMCA strikes. I did suggest to some who complained to me that I would reverse their DMCA strikes if they were willing to redirect their complaints to the developer/complaints about the developer. No one was willing to do so, and I no longer want to offer anyone the possibility of having their DMCA strikes reversed. Thank you.

It's worth repeating that none of this serves the purpose of the DMCA. In fact, there is a ton of potential harm to the YouTubers in question, who, in receiving these abusive DMCA notices, are at risk of having their channels pulled by YouTube. They can file a counter-claim, and should be successful with them, but there is still a risk. There is also risk for Mauer herself, as the DMCA process does have a perjury provision for fraudulent claims.

SidAlpha also explained that once the affected YouTubers process a successful counterclaim, they would be able to file a civic lawsuit against Mauer. This is because filing a fraudulent DMCA claim is considered perjury and she would be tried in the state the Youtubers live in. In addition, because the videos are transformative, they are protected by the Fair Use Doctrine which renders the DMCA strike spurious. Also, she doesn’t own the music in the first place because it was made as part of a for-hire contract with Imagos. Imagos owns all content related to Starr Mazer and Starr Mazer: DSP.

Mauer has since gone on to send out DMCA notices for a couple other games in which her music is featured, including one put out by Adult Swim. As part of this, Mauer has gone so far as to send a DMCA notice to Turner Broadcasting. Meanwhile, she put the music she created for Imagos under her contract on her own website, selling it as part of an album for $1,000.

This is as clear an abuse of the DMCA process as I've seen to date and there is no excuse for imperiling innocent YouTubers over a contract dispute with a game publisher. If ever there were a case begging for punishment over abuse of the DMCA system, this is certainly it.

Filed Under: alex mauer, censorship, copyright, disputes, dmca, music
Companies: imagos softworks, youtube