This is not an excuse. I was adding nuance to the claim made in the title. I also don’t disagree that Bethesda is ultimately responsible for the contractors it hires, and if Tracer made an erroneous DMCA request, Bethesda should take responsibility for correcting it. However, given Bethesda’s previous treatment of similar projects like Daggerfall Unity and OpenMW, I think a simple error is a more plausible explanation than the company being a copyright troll or an intentional action by Bethesda.

As per the reddit post it’s Tracer, a copyright enforcement company working on behalf of Zenimax and Bethesda, not Bethesda directly. I would be surprised if this was intentional because there is nothing but bad PR to gain. It’s probably just a false positive.

Despite the negative tone regarding the European side of the initiative in the first half of the video, everything seems to be running smoothly. That not everything would go perfectly from start to finish was to be expected and Ross said as much too. Him and everyone involved in making this happen are doing a great job and I have full trust in them.

It is telling though that the industry has to resort to nothing but lies and disinformation to “make their case.” They have no worthy argument against it and they know it. Hopefully all of those who make the decisions in the end of the day also know that.

Great news! It’s good to see that they actually seem to care about people’s opinions once in a while.

So, does anyone want to play a game of over/under on how long it will take before it’s proposed again? I’m guessing under three months.