The IP enforcement department of Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) has sent a DMCA claim against the role-playing game forum RPGHQ for hosting a mod for
The Sims 4 called "DEI Remover." The argument of the claim states that the site is hosting "material that infringes copyrights owned or controlled by EA. Specifically, (RPGHQ is) hosting copyrighted images from EA's
The Sims 4 video game and software that illegally modifies EA's copyrighted game code in violation of U.S. Copyright law."
rusty_shackleford said:
In response to a request from the IP enforcement department of Electronic Arts, we have delisted the mod "DEI Remover" for Sims 4 out of legal obligation.
RPGHQ considers this selective enforcement of copyright to be a targeted act of censorship. There was no monetary harm stemming from the mod — which does not even work with the current version of the game — existing. Nobody was benefiting from it monetarily.
If it was about general concerns of harm to their brand, 3/5 of the current top Sims 4 mods on the world's largest modding site are of a pornographic nature, with millions of downloads:
Make no mistake, this was targeted censorship for political reasons. I apologize to all of you for having to bow to the censorship demands, but I am legally required to do so as a platform provider to retain safe harbor status.
Post |
Archive
 |  |
Takedown notice received by rusty_shackleford, admin of RPGHQ
The underlying issue is that this claim is a targeted takedown of the contents of the mod, because
The Sims 4 has probably one of the largest modding communities that has done extensive changes to the game code through mods as well as used
The Sims 4 imagery.
Of the top 5 most downloaded mods of The Sims 4 in Nexus Mods, 3 of them are pornographic in nature with millions of downloads.
The mod in question is this:
Archive (mod re-uploaded to a third-party modding site - LaXMods.su)
The contents of the mod is redundant, because what the mod is essentially doing is changing the presets of some of the "Sims," the virtual people in the game, to be white and straight. However, even with presets, players can still change the "Sim" to become white and straight using the "Sim Editor." Even so, the mod does not work with the current version of the game.
rusty_shackleford said:
There was no monetary harm stemming from the mod — which does not even work with the current version of the game — existing. Nobody was benefiting from it monetarily.
Due to the small scale of RPGHQ (more than 25 times more smaller than the Kiwi Farms) and the lack of legal infrastructure that the forum has, RPGHQ acquiesces to EA's demands and delisted
The Sims 4 mod "DEI Remover" from the site to retain safe harbor status. The response of mod author Tipfy
is not optimistic (reply requires an account). Nevertheless, the mod ticked off EA's corporate that they sent a DMCA claim against the forum.
The event spooked RPGHQ's admin, rusty_shackleford, and he restricted access to see and download mods from RPGHQ for users without a RPGHQ account in the time being as EA's actions could encourage other game publishers/developers to utilize targeted DMCAs against popular "de-wokifying" mods hosted by the forum. RPGHQ is known for their mods to remove "wokeness" from
Baldur's Gate 3 and the game's developer
Larian Studios are aware of the forum's existence in a Discord comment according to a RPGHQ user.
rusty_shackleford has clarified RPGHQ's policy on modding is that modders who violate the DMCA claim repeatedly would ultimately be suspended from the forum. Ultimately, RPGHQ is unable to do much even with the American legal system due to the small size of the forum and the lack of legal resources the forum has.
rusty_shackleford said:
Hello HQsers, this is in regard to video game modifications.
I wanted to clarify our approach to the DMCA's repeat infringer policy. RPGHQ will suspend accounts of users who are repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances, as required by law.
There's an important distinction to make here:
For game modifications, even experienced IP lawyers struggle to determine whether the transformative content is infringing or protected as fair use. Given RPGHQ's limited resources (one employee with a near-zero budget), we cannot function as copyright adjudicators for complex transformative work cases.
Therefore, for transformative works specifically, we will generally rely on legal determinations of infringement when implementing our repeat infringer policy. This balanced approach allows us to meet our legal obligations while avoiding a chilling effect on legitimate creative expression.
I am using Nimmer on Copyright, Volume 4, 12b.10 as the source for this decision. Nimmer's legal treatises are highly regarded in the area of copyright law.
Post |
Archive
