WotC WotC (Mistakenly) Issues DMCA Takedown Against Baldur's Gate-themed Stardew Valley Mod

Wizards of the Coast recently issued a DMCA takedown notice against Baldur's Village, a popular fan-created Stardew Valley mod which was based on Baldur's Gate 3.

Created by a modding team called Nexus Mods, the mod featured BG3 characters such as Astarion and Shadowheart, 20+ NPCs, and various locations and events. The mod, which has had over 4,000 downloads, took over a year to make, according to the team, and garnered praise from Swen Vincke, the CEO of Larion, the company which made Baldur's Gate 3, who also posted about the situation on Twitter:

“Free quality fan mods highlighting your characters in other game genres are proof your work resonates and a unique form of word of mouth. Imho they shouldn’t be treated like commercial ventures that infringe on your property. Protecting your IP can be tricky, but I do hope this gets settled. There are good ways of dealing with this.”

The mod went into "moderation review" on March 29th. However, it seems this was a 'mistake'--WotC has since issued a statement:

"The Baldur's Village DMCA takedown was issued mistakenly—we are sorry about that. We are in the process of fixing that now so fans and the Stardew community can continue to enjoy this great mod!"

So, the mod is back again! To use it you need the have the Stardew Modding API, the Content Patcher, and the Portraiture mod.

This isn't the first time WotC has 'erroneously' issued takedown notices against fans. In August 2024, the company took action against various YouTubers who were previewing the then-upcoming 2024 D&D Player's Handbook. A few days later, after some public outcry, WotC reversed its decision.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Wizards of the Coast says it didn't mean to send a DMCA takedown notice to the Baldur's Gate 3 Stardew mod: 'We are in the process of fixing that now'

The mod has Swen Vincke's personal approval, and the legal threat didn't go over well with fans—now WotC says it was "issued mistakenly."

www.pcgamer.com

Sorry didn't realize there was a thread on this already, please delete this.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I guess it’s time to reset the ‘days since Wizards did something miserably oppressively joyless and then claimed it was a mistake when it people started calling them out on it’ counter back to zero. Again.

This was probably a firm they hired to patrol the internet, looking for DMCA violations. It's a pretty common problem for those firms (which probably automate nearly all of their work) to shoot first and ask questions later.

 

[Faolyn]

I bought 3D printed BG3 character minis from Etsy. i wonder how much that seller has made, and how much they would have to make in order to draw WotC's attention/ire.

Well, they probably don't say how much they make right on their storefront, unlike Kickstarter.

 

[aco175]

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a US law that protects copyrighted works on the internet. It was passed in 1998 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Now ya know.

 

[Nightfly]

I guess it’s time to reset the ‘days since Wizards did something miserably oppressively joyless and then claimed it was a mistake when it people started calling them out on it’ counter back to zero. Again.

You should just make this post into a macro so you don't have to type it all in again when the same thing happens in two weeks.

 

[Maxperson]

How does that happen accidentally?

 

[Deset Gled]

I guess it’s time to reset the ‘days since Wizards did something miserably oppressively joyless and then claimed it was a mistake when it people started calling them out on it’ counter back to zero. Again.

I don't know if your tone is joking or serious, but this seems like a stretch.

As far as I can tell, the situation occurred at a time that a number of legitimate DMCA takedowns occurred. And the one bad one was corrected in about a day. That seems pretty reasonable to me. It seems like a legitimate mistake that they did their best to respond to quickly. And the turn around seems faster than many social media moguls (Facebook, Tik Tok, etc.) typically take to respond to complaints, and pretty darn fast for lawyers to move. I've read about people being defunded or delisted from Google Ads or other platforms for weeks or longer.

I'll admit it's not the best thing ever, but i'm having a hard time finding outrage for it. Unless I've got the time frame wrong or I'm missing some other details. Mistakes happen.

 

[humble minion]

I don't know if your tone is joking or serious, but this seems like a stretch.

Only part serious. I find your explanation of how this happened entirely convincing, but if this sort of thing had just happened once in isolation, this’d be a non-story.

This is just such an incredibly self-inflicted bullet to the foot. Sure, WotC contracts this stuff out to an outside company, but if they do this knowing that this is how that company works, then they own it. If they haven’t presented that company with a whitelist of stuff not to issue strikes against, that’s on them. If nobody at WotC was paying attemtion to a mod that was so popular that the BG3 creators were talking it up, and nobody thought to add it to the whitelist, that’s on them too.

Is it a big deal, end of the world, OGL revocation type thing? No, not even close, of course. And it was quickly sorted out once someone at WotC woke up to the PCGamer article and got hit with a clue bat. Was it yet another unnecessary PR stuff up from a company who should know full well that they’re accumulating a very long list of ‘we’re a bunch of joyless corporate jerks, ask us how’ datapoints? Absolutely.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

How does that happen accidentally?

Automated response.

 

[BMaC]

People need to stop buying anything made by WotC.