Unomelon, the developer of Minecraft-inspired sandbox game Allumeria, says a DMCA from Microsoft, evidently related to Minecraft, got the game removed from Steam.
“The Allumeria Steam page is currently down because Microsoft has filed a false DMCA claim on it,” Unomelon said on Bluesky on Tuesday. “They sent an email earlier today claiming that this screenshot infringes on their copyright. I am taking a moment to figure out what my path is going forward, will update soon.”
The screenshot in question (above) is a simple wide shot of a forest filled with birch trees, what look to be oak trees with green and autumnal leaves, and a few pumpkins and weeds checkering the grassy dirt. There are definitely some similarities to Minecraft; if you told me this was a screenshot of a Minecraft mod, I’d probably believe you, but that’s true of many voxel-based games, including Hytale.
It’s not just the tree - it’s the whole scene. (Complete with random pumpkins that you wouldn’t ever include unless you were deliberately copying Minecraft.) As I’ve said, I don’t know if that’s illegal but it’s certainly derivative enough that I have no sympathy for it.
There is nothing literally taken from minecraft. All the textures are original, and not even that similar to minecraft. I’ve talked with people like you before who just has no fucking clue about something that is so obvious to just about everyone else when it comes to stuff like this. It’s very clearly NOT minecraft, nothing in anything shown in the images or anywhere else from the game gives any hint at stolen models, textures etc.
There are tons of block games like this and many that look way more similar but those have never gotten a DMCA.
Hytale looks like Minecraft with a texture pack and shaders. Every Minecraft inspired block based game looks like Minecraft with a texture pack and shader.
Oh and MS just withdrew their copyright claim because it was bullshit from the start.
I’m all for new takes on the block game (been looking forward to Hytale and will definitely give it a go sometime in the near future) but after watching the trailer…
It would be hard for me to tell this isn’t Minecraft if I didn’t watch or look into the game on a semi regular basis. It looks incredible derivative.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily in need of the copyright strike I don’t know the rules, but I’m not surprised it got one.
So. Immediate feelings of outrage followed by a mental shrug post trailer viewing.
And an Chevy el Camino looks like an ford ranchero. Not sure why you are so upset someone can reconginize the similarities. And yeah you cant just copyright things that just ‘look similar’ weird i know.
Because it sets a really bad precedent. It’s the equivalent of looking at an eastern-european forest in a game and being “that game is ripping off the Witcher 3”. No, that’s just how forests look like in the real world. And that’s just how scenery looks in a block game. Are block games not supposed to have forests and caves in their games because Minecraft popularized them first?
A bad precedent? Like people finding common attriubutes and reconginizeing their source of inspiration? Lol
Do you also think its a bad precedent when people look at OpenTTD and say “boy, that looks a lot like TTD” even though legally they are two different entities.
I’m not arguing about whether the copyright claim is legit. I’m saying that claiming the picture in the post doesn’t look like MC is a questionable opinion at best.
Which is an irrelevant point because it’s a singular image, and one that is depicting only nature which by nature (pun wasn’t intended) is generic. And to prove my point what is the first game that comes to mind when you see this image?
Well that’s pretty much my point. None come to mind because it could be any game with a “realistic” forest. The same way you could take a forest photo in a random block style game and it could come out looking like Minecraft. One nature image from one game looking like a nature image from a different game doesn’t mean anything.
I get your point, but there are some pretty specific similarities, notably:
Grass texture sides having exposed dirt
Clumps of pumpkin blocks as a forest-generating feature
Single-block tree trunks with a clump of leaves on top
Minecraft-like terrain generation and texturing
All of which are featured prominently in the screenshot. There are differences-- taller trees, more small vegetation, different grass block color variation, colored and differently-modeled leaves-- but it’s more similar than other voxel-based games I’m familiar with. Maybe I don’t play many mc-likes, but other voxel games like Fractal Block World, Teardown, that foresty one with the tiny voxels (forgot the name), Lucid Blocks (the other voxel game by this same creator(!!) about a liminal world), and even Hypixel have more notable differences than this screenshot does. Maybe there’s more to the game that’s different, but this particular screenshot looks like lightly modded MC.
Minecraft copyright doesn’t cover the entire genre of block-based sandbox pixel art games. Minecraft isn’t even the first in that genre, even if it’s the most popular by a wide margin.
Unless Microsoft can prove that one of the textures started by copying a Minecraft texture, or that substantial bits of code are copied from Minecraft, there is no claim.
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It’s not just the tree - it’s the whole scene. (Complete with random pumpkins that you wouldn’t ever include unless you were deliberately copying Minecraft.) As I’ve said, I don’t know if that’s illegal but it’s certainly derivative enough that I have no sympathy for it.
Minecraft has red leaves?
Curious what your thoughts are on Vintage Story, Hytale, Castleminer Z, etc…
There is nothing literally taken from minecraft. All the textures are original, and not even that similar to minecraft. I’ve talked with people like you before who just has no fucking clue about something that is so obvious to just about everyone else when it comes to stuff like this. It’s very clearly NOT minecraft, nothing in anything shown in the images or anywhere else from the game gives any hint at stolen models, textures etc. There are tons of block games like this and many that look way more similar but those have never gotten a DMCA.
It looks like Minecraft bro turn off your reality distortion field
Did you even look into it or did you just do what the AI generating the DMCA did and looked at a singular image and decided it looks like Minecraft?
It does look like minecraft with a texture pack and shaders. Though, the trees look skinnier than normal.
Hytale looks like Minecraft with a texture pack and shaders. Every Minecraft inspired block based game looks like Minecraft with a texture pack and shader.
Oh and MS just withdrew their copyright claim because it was bullshit from the start.
I’m all for new takes on the block game (been looking forward to Hytale and will definitely give it a go sometime in the near future) but after watching the trailer…
It would be hard for me to tell this isn’t Minecraft if I didn’t watch or look into the game on a semi regular basis. It looks incredible derivative.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily in need of the copyright strike I don’t know the rules, but I’m not surprised it got one.
So. Immediate feelings of outrage followed by a mental shrug post trailer viewing.
And an Chevy el Camino looks like an ford ranchero. Not sure why you are so upset someone can reconginize the similarities. And yeah you cant just copyright things that just ‘look similar’ weird i know.
Because it sets a really bad precedent. It’s the equivalent of looking at an eastern-european forest in a game and being “that game is ripping off the Witcher 3”. No, that’s just how forests look like in the real world. And that’s just how scenery looks in a block game. Are block games not supposed to have forests and caves in their games because Minecraft popularized them first?
A bad precedent? Like people finding common attriubutes and reconginizeing their source of inspiration? Lol Do you also think its a bad precedent when people look at OpenTTD and say “boy, that looks a lot like TTD” even though legally they are two different entities.
I’m not arguing about whether the copyright claim is legit. I’m saying that claiming the picture in the post doesn’t look like MC is a questionable opinion at best.
Which is an irrelevant point because it’s a singular image, and one that is depicting only nature which by nature (pun wasn’t intended) is generic. And to prove my point what is the first game that comes to mind when you see this image?
None in particular, but I don’t have experience with triple-A games enough to know about this artstyle
Well that’s pretty much my point. None come to mind because it could be any game with a “realistic” forest. The same way you could take a forest photo in a random block style game and it could come out looking like Minecraft. One nature image from one game looking like a nature image from a different game doesn’t mean anything.
I get your point, but there are some pretty specific similarities, notably:
All of which are featured prominently in the screenshot. There are differences-- taller trees, more small vegetation, different grass block color variation, colored and differently-modeled leaves-- but it’s more similar than other voxel-based games I’m familiar with. Maybe I don’t play many mc-likes, but other voxel games like Fractal Block World, Teardown, that foresty one with the tiny voxels (forgot the name), Lucid Blocks (the other voxel game by this same creator(!!) about a liminal world), and even Hypixel have more notable differences than this screenshot does. Maybe there’s more to the game that’s different, but this particular screenshot looks like lightly modded MC.
The style is similar to Minecraft, the rest just happens in nature. I took a walk in my woods last fall and saw oak and birch and even… pumpkins
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Minecraft copyright doesn’t cover the entire genre of block-based sandbox pixel art games. Minecraft isn’t even the first in that genre, even if it’s the most popular by a wide margin.
Unless Microsoft can prove that one of the textures started by copying a Minecraft texture, or that substantial bits of code are copied from Minecraft, there is no claim.
Indeed
And theres only so many ways to make a low pixel square look when you wanna make it look like a birch tree
Hytales birch trees are just more gray, and dont have white/black contrast
Same leaf color though