Redfall, Arkane’s new co-op, immersive-sim, vampire-killer game is out on May 2, and naturally leaks of the game are spilling out on Twitter. At the same time, the official Twitter account for the title is doing its usual round of hype promo posts. The timing of these two forces, however, can lead to some complications. Had you checked the account today, you might’ve noticed that the banner image had gone down for about 30 minutes due to, the text indicated, “a report from the copyright holder.” Odd for an official account, but perhaps not too unexpected considering the volatile nature of Twitter these days.
Under the “leadership” of Elon Musk, Twitter’s seen substantial cuts to staff and wild shifts in its own policies, such as an overhaul of the blue checkmarks and an erosion of its Trust and Safety policies, including the removal of a policy forbidding “misgendering or deadnaming transgender individuals.” Copyright issues have also been of note lately. In late 2022, Twitter saw a wave of copyright violations when its automated systems for taking down copyrighted material went down. In January of 2023, Backgrid, a celebrity photo agency, sued the bird site for $228.9 million over thousands of ignored DMCA requests to remove its images from the site. Months later, Musk said that Twitter wouldn’t tolerate “repeated, egregious weaponization” of takedown notices, but will still enforce them where necessary. Now it seems a bit of “friendly fire” might’ve hit the official Redfall Twitter account, briefly taking down the account’s own banner as Bethesda and Microsoft worked to stamp out leaks of the upcoming co-op shooter.
Twitter user PMS Jordan spotted the issue, sharing a screenshot of Redfall’s Twitter account that showed a sad sight: A banner image replaced by gray nothingness and a text notice that simply says, “This image has been removed in response to a report from the copyright holder.” Whoops.
PMS Jordan followed up their tweet with a screen recording showing the image failing to refresh.
Kotaku has reached out to Microsoft for comment.
Copyright strikes and DMCA panic have often been a site of aggressive overreach and poor communication, often harminh content creators who don’t have the advantage of a legal team at the ready to clear things up. Luckily for Arkane, the issue seemed to have been sorted out quickly, but it’s a reminder that copyright on the internet continues to be a minefield of unexpected frustration.