Sony, MarkScan Go On ‘Bloodborne’ DMCA Blitz Of Fun, Fan-Made Creations

It’s always interesting to me to see companies identify what they see as a threat by looking at what type of content they attempt to DMCA or otherwise disappear. When actual direct and flagrant wholesale copying of a digital product occurs, you can understand why the takedowns are issued. We might still want to argue that there are business model methods for making that less of an issue, but the logic is there. When companies instead look to silence criticism via DMCA takedowns, well, that’s more interesting. Why is the criticism seen as such a threat? The same goes for DMCAing hobbyists that stream their hobby. And when they go after fan-made creations that serve to celebrate the original IP of the company, why in the world is that seen as a threat?

On that last category, none of this is to suggest that companies aren’t within their rights to block fans from expressing their fandom using the company’s IP. But they also don’t have to. Just like Sony didn’t have to go on an absolute DMCA blitz over all kinds of Bloodborne content to ring in the new year. Sony is utilizing MarkScan as its enforcers for this. MarkScan has made it onto our pages before for both being a pain in the ass to reach for those targeted by the company and for making absolutely bullshit copyright claims against others.

Some are speculating that all of this action is occurring because a remake of Bloodborne might be on the way. Whether that is true or not I don’t know, but it doesn’t make some of these takedowns make any more sense. Why did Sony have to issue a takedown for a mod for the original game that made it run in 60 frames per second? Why did Sony have to force a name change for a game that essentially mashed up Bloodborne into kart-racing and “demaked” into PlayStation 1 graphics? And, finally, even if the 2015 PS4 game is about to get an updated remake, why did it have to shut down a project to “demake” the original game also in PS1 style graphics? Especially when that thing was released years ago?

Will Sony ever release a remake or remaster of Bloodborne, the Dark Souls successor that became one of our favorite games of 2015? Even Sony’s former games chief isn’t sure — but that isn’t stopping Sony’s copyright enforcers from shutting down fun in the meanwhile. Last week, it axed the 60fps mod that let the game finally run smoothly, and now it’s killed the fan-made “Bloodborne PSX” demake that reimagined Bloodborne as a block game for the original 1995 PlayStation.

It’s been over three years since Lilith “b0tster” Walther released her homage to early PlayStation games, and it’s only now that Sony is taking it down — or rather MarkScan, the enforcer that slapped the game with a copyright takedown notice that has now taken over its itch.io page.

As The Verge notes, Walther is also the maker of the kart-style game referenced above. She willingly changed the name of that game to Nightmare Kart when Sony reached out to her directly. In this case, there was no direct reach-out. Instead, MarkScan simply issued a takedown of the project page. MarkScan has also managed to takedown some of Walther’s YouTube videos of the demake as well.

Is Sony within its rights here? Sure, of course. Are there roughly a zillion other, better ways it could handle this sort of thing? No doubt. And does MarkScan deserve one iota of trust that it will get this sort of thing right? Not based on the enforcer’s success rate, I’d say.

MarkScan submits millions upon millions of URL takedown requests on behalf of Sony, Amazon, Netflix, Crunchyroll, Novi Digital Entertainment and more, according to a Google transparency report; Google winds up removing around 47 percent of them.

Less than half of the takedown requests result in an actual takedown. Not great. And precisely how much time, energy, and effort is absolutely wasted on the other 53 percent?

The answer is both unknowable and likely a monsterous figure. But when there are no real penalties to the copyright carpetbomb routine, why should groups like MarkScan give a damn?

And why can’t companies like Sony figure out how to let fans be fans and make cool stuff?