In a statement from the Video Game History Foundation, it was announced that the 1999 game Cookie’s Bustle from Japanese developer Rodik has at last been freed from the hands of a copyright troll who has been crusading to scrub all traces of the game from the internet for the past several years.
Cookie’s Bustle is a bizarre adventure game where players step into the shoes of Cookie Blair, a young girl who takes on the appearance of a cartoonish bear, and guide her through a surreal adventure that features extreme sports, political intrigue, shocking bursts of violence, and aliens.
Starting in 2022, archival uploads of the game itself alongside videos, screenshots, fanart, community mods, and even Discord chat messages have been at the mercy of DMCA content takedown notices on behalf of a company known as Graceware, SL or sometimes, an individual allegedly named Brandon White.
Despite no evidence that Graceware actually exists as a company in any capacity, White was able to use the services of a UK trade group called Ukie to file the takedowns on his and his “company’s” behalf. Ukie charges only £60 per month to provide services for small companies, making this method surprisingly affordable.
When the Video Game History Foundation was targeted by one of these dubious takedown attempts, they chose to stand their ground. With help from a legal professional, they determined that the “Copyright registrations” filed by White were made through a private German company called INTEROCO, which holds no legal jurisdiction in any country or region. Further investigation into INTEROCO by the Foundation reportedly yielded dubious findings, including a lack of regulation on potential abuse and undisclosed fees for their services.
The Foundation’s next step was to take these findings to Ukie, and inquire as to whether there was any legally substantive proof of White being Cookie’s Bustle’s copyright holder. Ukie, fearing potential implication in what amounts to fraudulent abuse of copyright law, answered that they would inquire with White and Graceware for clarification on Cookie’s Bustle’s copyright status.
While the precise details of what went on behind the scenes between Ukie and Graceware are a matter of speculation, Ukie finally came back over a month later to notify the Video Game History Foundation that it would no longer be serving DMCA takedown notices on behalf of Graceware, and have effectively ended their relationship with them. Without a major trade organization like Ukie supporting him, it’s unlikely White and his supposed company Graceware will be able to continue their crusade against Cookie’s Bustle.
Rodik, the original creators of Cookie’s Bustle, seem to have quietly closed their doors some time in the early 2000s. A legal notice from their (now defunct) website states that the company ceased development and sales of software as of June 25, 2001. However, Rodik maintained their legal rights to their formerly published work, and reserved the right to press charges against anyone illegally copying, distributing, or otherwise infringing on their ownership rights.
Humorously, one of the listed hypothetical examples of infringement is that of a “self-proclaimed CG creator that falsely claimed image data from Cookie’s Bustle as his own creation, and illegally displayed copyright notices using his own nickname and trade name (…) without permission from the software rights holder,” which is eerily similar to what ended up happening nearly over 20 years later with Brandon White and Graceware.
With Rodik evidently out of business – their website’s domain is now owned by a New York real estate company of the same name – the true owner of the game’s copyright remains unclear, relegating it to the legal gray-area status of “abandonware.” Unless an actual publisher can prove they’ve secured the rights, an official rerelease of the game is unlikely. But at the very least, this development should mean netizens are free to share whatever Cookie’s Bustle-related material they like without fear of takedowns or legal harassment.
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