- Joined
- May 10, 2019
- Messages
- 204
What happened?
On the 28th of May, Cobalt-57, the developers behind the beta recreation mod for Half-Life titled Absolute Zero, announced on their Twitter that "Our Half-Life production will be pulled down for a short period of time for re-branding to comply with a DMCA filed against us".Who and why would do this? An indie gamedev company named Giggle Horse Games who are working on a game under the same title.
In the (now removed) YouTube comments under one of the Giggle Horse's videos by the company's CEO, Randell Trulson, that they "have used the trademark legally for nearly a decade", despite the trademark that belonged to the 1995 Absolute Zero MS-DOS game, was abandoned up until 2018, when Giggle Horse acquired rights to the trademark.
While what they did may be within their legal rights, the ethical side of this action is considered by many as a bad move. We'll try to contact both sides for more detailed comments and update the news post once we hear from them.
Sources
1. Cobalt-57 on Twitter: "Our Half-Life production will be pulled down for a short period of time for re-branding to comply with a DMCA filed against us. We apologize for this inconvenience."2. Half-Life MOD Struck Down With DMCA Claim! - YouTube