IT KEEPS HAPPENING!
Well, you can add Riot to the pile of companies that did something scummy to an independent over use of a common term. In this case, the word “Arcane”.
Ukranian artist Kutty Sark got hit with a DMCA notice from the League of Legends developer due to a shirt she was selling on TeePublic. The shirt in question features a character from her webcomic, Arcane Flames, which has been running since 2019, the initial inception of which goes back to an Inktober challenge in 2018. Presumably, the reason for all of this is that its title uses the word “Arcane”, much like Riot’s recent Netflix Original series Arcane.
The DMCA strike was so thorough, the email Sark received claimed it was a “valid takedown request”. She tried to file a counterclaim, but TeePublic told her “we are unable to reinstate this design because it was a DMCA claim from Riot Games.”
For their part in all of this, Riot quickly issued an apology, claiming that the takedown notice was made in error.
According to Sark, Riot had almost immediately been in contact with her, and as of this writing, her design is reinstated. Still, this is the kind of thing that happens when you allow a bot or something similar to decide things without any meaningful human review. And it’s probably going to keep happening, just as it always has, until most of these companies realize that you can’t completely automate these sorts of things.
Source: PC Gamer
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