Snail Games DMCA Spawns Lawsuit

California court asked for a declaratory judgment.

Roughly a week ago we reported on the removal of Myth of Empires, a Steam game developed and released by Angela Games and Antiidelay respectively. Myth of Empires wasn’t banned, but rather struck from the store with a DMCA takedown notice by developer/publisher Snail Games. The claim reported by PC Gamer at the time was that Snail Games is alleging that Myth of Empires uses stolen code from Ark: Survival Evolved. Myth of Empires has remained off sale ever since.

Well the folks behind Myth of Empires are apparently sure enough of themselves to fight this in court. Myth of Empires developer Suzhou Angela Online Game Technology Co. Ltd. (don’t you love Chinese developer names?) along with Imperium Interactive Entertainment Limited have taken the plaintiff stand and filed suit against Snail Games and Wildcard in the central district of California court.

The lawsuit seeks a declaratory judgment regarding the copyright dispute between the companies. Essentially Snail Games is being asked to put its money where its mouth is, and prove the claims of copyright infringement in court. The plaintiffs have demanded a judgment that Myth of Empires does not infringe on Snail Games copyright, as well as an injunction to retract any copyright claims on the game on Steam and elsewhere. The plaintiffs further filed for damages under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), which claims Snail Games knowingly misrepresented its claims of copyright infringement. If the judge agrees, it could make Snail Games liable for any damages incurred by the takedown as well as lawyers’ fees and legal costs.

Source: Lawsuit, Exhibit #1