Dark Souls publisher Bandai Namco has just issued an official takedown notice to Dropbox to remove DSFix, the bunch of tweaks and fixes and bespoke config files that made Dark Souls actually playable on PC. While it’s entirely possible that there has just been a miscommunication somewhere, Durante — the guy behind the patch — is more than a little confused as to why.
At the moment, the Dropbox link to the most recent version of DSFix 404s — “the file you’re looking for has been moved or deleted” — and there’s a good reason for that. According to a thread on NeoGAF started by Durante:
Hi Dropbox User,
We’ve received a notification under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) from BANDAI NAMCO Games Germany GmbH that the following material is claimed to be infringing:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ddwbdpd3qgm9upk/DSfix23.zip
Accordingly, under Section 512(c)(1)(C) of DMCA, we’ve removed or disabled access to the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.
As a result of this notice, public sharing on your account has been disabled. We will reinstate your account’s public links if you remove the file(s) listed above from your account.
Please be aware that copyright infringement violates our Terms of Service and Copyright Policy, which can be found at:
https://www.dropbox.com/terms#terms
https://www.dropbox.com/help/210
Also note that Dropbox has a policy of terminating the accounts of repeat infringers. If you repeatedly use Dropbox to infringe copyrights, your account will be terminated and you will lose access to your files.
If you believe that this DMCA notice was sent in error, you may file a counter notification. That notification must comply substantially with 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3) and include a statement under penalty of perjury of a good faith belief that the DMCA notice was the result of mistake or misidentification.
You can submit a counter notification using our online form here:
https://www.dropbox.com/dmca_counter…8721&h=7ccbb76
or by sending it to the following address:
Copyright Agent
Dropbox Inc.
185 Berry Street, Suite 400
San Francisco, CA 94107
copyright@dropbox.com– The Dropbox Team
Durante says the takedown is, in no uncertain terms, “utter bullshit”, citing the fact that DSFix doesn’t actually include any code from Bamco — it’s all from scratch. Add onto that the anecdotal bump in sales, as well as publicity, that DSFix has given the Dark Souls games on PC, and it’s a little perplexing as to why this has actually happened.
It’s entirely possible that this could be an automated copyright ‘bot accidentally locking onto the wrong target, or it could be in some way related to the recent debug .exe going around that has the potential to alter gameplay and open up exploits and glitches. At the moment, that’s not clear. In addition, further into the NeoGAF thread, another user who hosted DSFix on Nexus Mods says that they’d received a similar takedown request from a third party called File Defence, claiming to represent Bandai Namco:
The reason for the takedown remains murky. In any case, if DSFix is gone, it’s a dark day for PC players of Dark Souls.
We’re looking into it, and will let you know more as soon as we have extra info. [NeoGAF]
Comments
52 responses to “Bandai Namco Just DMCA’d The Fix For Dark Souls On PC”
*adds Namco’s name to the li-*
Oh. They’re already here.
*underlines several times*
Yeah, they’re pretty much total bastards.
If someone in Bandai Namco Sales could just walk up to Bandai Namco Legal and have a few words, that’d be great. Ok, thanks, bye.
Sounds like Bandai Namco Legal have outsourced to some bunch of idiots that don’t know what they’re doing and are sending DMCA notices on their behalf.
In this sort of thing, in my experience, it’s often just a case of left hand being unaware of right hand, and lawyers attempting to justify their billed hours.
Honestly it sounds like they’ve outsourced to a bunch of potatoes. Really seems like Bandai Namco are shooting themselves in the foot here…again.
Hey, watch what you say about potatoes now!
Good point, I think potatoes have more awareness than the Bandai Namco legal team haha
Everyone needs to remember developers publishers are no different to Oil company’s or fast food franchises, they are there for profit it just happens to be games that they sell.
Sad but completely true.
The developers aren’t so bad (generally speaking). It’s the publishers who are the evil ones!
But Nintendo. Bethesda and CD Projeckt aren’t evil! Right? …RIGHT??? 🙁
They won a lot of goodwill over the years! They have, however, worn that goodwill pretty damn thin and it’s kind of patchy and in need of a good wash and stain-removal.
banning a free program that actually makes your game playable on the pc is no way turn a profit
But in this case, the “offending” material in question actually resulted in more sales and, thus, higher profit. This makes no sense from either a business perspective or a not-being-dickheads perspective.
If the actual devs/publishers had a hand in this it wouldn’t have happened… I’m confident more than a few people would say DSfix is the reason Dark Souls sold as well as it has on PC.
I know I only bought it on PC because DSfix existed.
Yeah we all know business is business, as been told every time there’s questionable corporate activity. So since we know it, we’ve got to stop it from being an excuse.
Except this move has no winner. Its stupid.
All the good ones have been bought so I stand corrected, except Rockstar and MAYBE CD Projekt red.
and Nintendo and Bethesda
Nintendo have been rehashing the same old crap for 15 years and Bethesda is responsible for Elder scrolls online.
Sorry I don’t want to sound like a downer but I have been really beaten down this year, had a lot of high hopes all turn.. ubersoft
On the plus side, this year Ubisoft put out Child of Light, Valiant Hearts and Far Cry 4, all of which were so good as to become high points of the year. And while AC: Unity was a bomb, Rogue was apparently pretty good.
I payed $89 for Watch_dogs, by the time they made it playable I didn’t want to look at it. I also bought Farcry 4 and still can’t play on SLI..
I appreciate your optimism in fact I envy it but I have been burnt so.. so so soooo many times.. but like the chumps who play destiny I keep going back!!!
Goddamn Uplay though, my friend and I have tried many times to play Anno 2070 via uplay which we are forced to use and uplay refuses to work for him, no matter what we try.
Best part about getting CD’s was at least you had a coaster when it didn’t work, now you don’t even get that.
If you can summarize what has basically been a documented history of accomplishments in game design as “rehashing the same old crap” (pressumedly because using the same characters) I’m sad to say that there’s no hope for you. I don’t know what are you expecting from videogames, but I can tell you that you’ll never have it. At this point is not an actual ideal but an ever-fleeting fantasy that you maintain if only because it allows you to belittle the endeavours and pleasures of others, granting you an clout of world-weary discernment in the process.
I didn’t ask for a poem I was just saying the Nintendo’s nostalgia train wont run forever.
And my point is that there’s no “Nostalgia Train” or at least not to the extent you dismissively state. Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario Bros 64, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario 3D World, titles that you surely lump as “the same old crap” are each actually highly lauded as influential, if not completely informing, of gaming design trends by several major game creators, each with different virtues of their own. Same for several other of Nintendo franchises and games. Scoffing at them shows how little you actually know and go to explain your negative attitude towards the whole medium.
Bethesda is owned by Zenimax.
This will be fixed soon I’m betting. Bandai Namco has been very good in the past with regards to making sure community contributors are whitelisted.
You’re the man with the knowledge! I trust your judgment, Jungle List.
Isn’t there a method for countering false claims? Since it’s not actually infringing on anything.
The linked excerpt in the article shows how one can go about claiming ‘mistake or misinformation’ to dropbox specifically, which is very interesting considering how it also references that repeated take-down notices will result in account closure. No idea about contacting the publisher directly, but I’d be hard-pressed to believe that Bandai Namco doesn’t know about this by now.
I’d like to believe, but I just can’t. The cynic in me would like to think they’re getting rid of DSFix to bundle a ‘remastered’ DS1 with the DS2 “rerelease”, forcing more money out of PC players.
I *really* hope it’s not that. That would pretty much be the dickiest dick move to someone who basically fixed DS on PC.
But I know Youtubers who’ve had a very easy time of getting on the Content ID whitelist. It was basically a case of just asking. Some publishers don’t even like Content ID. Youtube footage is different to mods, but it speaks to an internal philosophy about community contribution. That’s me being optimistic, anyway — I’ll be very disappointed if this is intentional.
“Good news, Bandai-Namco! We’ve issued DMCA notices to a bunch of stinking pirates and modders and other undesirables sullying your good name with exploits and hacks and mods!”
“Very good, keep up the good wor–Wait… why did you say modders in that list?”
“It was pretty hard work! You wouldn’t believe how prevalent this one hack is… some ‘DSfix’ thing has so many downloads it must almost be on every copy. Unbelievable the nerve of these–”
*coffee-spray-spit-take* “You WHAT?! You DMCA’d DSfix?!”
*nervous fidget* “Well, ye– uhm, I… Yes?”
“You issued a take-down notice for the fan-made – IE: WE DIDN’T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT – patch that single-handedly keeps the self-righteous nerdrage of literally hundreds of thousands of vengeful neckbeards at bay and bumps our post-tail sales every time it improves?”
“I… uh. I’m getting the impression you think this is a bad thing.”
*hits intercom* “Yuriko, please send in Captain Obvious. Tell him to bring the Chair-leg of Enlightenment. And a tarp.”
*edit* ugh Im an idiot. Note to self… dont read kotaku when exhausted. Jokes miss me like stormtroopers miss escaping rebels…
See, the trick is that it’s not MY opinion, it’s me positing what the publisher thinks. 😉
I’m using in-character voice.
(I, too, am a part of the glorious master race who has suffered the rank injustice of obvious console ports and lacklustre efforts held back by catering to aging console hardware for too long. TOO LONG! DON’T TELL ME NOT TO UNPLUG MY COMPUTER WHILE AUTO-SAVING I NEVER UNPLUG MY COMPUTER WHO THE FUCK UNPLUGS THEIR COMPUTER?)
Hahahhahaha ok now I’ll upvote. 🙂
On another note I really should not read kotaku with less than 2 hours sleep in 48 :/
Lost it at “Chair-leg of Enlightenment”
Ta. It’s a Spider Jerusalem reference. If you haven’t read the graphic novel Transmetropolitan, I highly recommend you do. 🙂
They really shouldn’t allow DMCA claims to be made by automated bots. It should require an actual human being (or at least a corporate lawyer HIIIIYOOOOOOOOO) to physically look at the supposedly offending material and then manually submit the claim. Otherwise it just allows companies to take a shoot first and ask questions later approach – block em all and let God sort em out.
You couldn’t hire enough real people to handle any major property’s DMCA requirements. And even if you did, the cost would be insane. And I gather rights-holders powerfully resent being forced to pay human costs for something that could be automated.
Like if you have a problem with them durn kids always being on your lawn. You can hire a few good men with some iron in their hands to keep the kids away, but they insist on getting paid overtime for the night shift and want ‘breaks’ and other unreasonable bullshit… or you can install an auto-turret. You might lose the occasional mailman, but they’ll wise up soon enough.
No reason they couldn’t use an automated system to find the supposed copyright breaches, but they should at least have to be reviewed and filtered by a person before going the next step to lodging a claim. Don’t want to pay somebody to do it? Tough. That’s the cost of doing business. Or at the very least there should be another automated system to provide immediate financial compensation to anybody who successfully submits a counter notification, since it’s wasting THEIR time and money to deal with a false DMCA claim.
I like the idea of penalties for false claims. They’d certainly be a lot more careful. …You’d hope.
As it is, the facilitators such as youtube, dropbox, whoever, seem to operate on a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ policy.
2014 – The Year most developers/publishers because douchebags to their fanbases.
Yet we continue to lick up their leavings….
I literally just got Dark Souls a few days ago. I did manage to get DSFix and I use it. If I continue using it will I get banned…? orrrr? May seem like a silly question, but, I just want to be absolutely sure.
I’d like to also add. After hearing the shitstorm about DS1 I really never wanted to get it. I only did get it because of DSFix
I very much doubt that you have anything to worry about. Just enjoy the game and remember that pushing it to 60FPS breaks several elements of it (mostly ladders).
At most, just be on the lookout for any patches that might disable DSFix.
Further to what @trjn said, if you’re playing through Steam you may want to go into the game’s settings and un-tick ‘keep this game updated’.
They’re getting destroyed on Twitter. They should make a statement soon before they kill what little goodwill was left towards them from the PC gaming crowd.
Yeah, you would think it wouldn’t be too hard to get a statement… but I pity anyone who does ANYTHING that might require ‘someone important sign-off’ anywhere this close to Christmas.
/r/darksouls just linked to a namco article saying it was an error as they were searching for the debug file mentioned in the posts earlier. So, moving along.
SO glad I managed to 100% this yesterday. I shall be following this story with interest in the future