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.
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:
[Removed]
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…8…
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 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]
This post originally appeared on Kotaku Australia.