Your game was taken down by a false copyright claim. How to get it back.

The email says your game has been removed for copyright infringement. It is your game. You wrote it. The store page now shows an error, and nobody has asked for your side.

A game we shipped was extracted, rebuilt and resold, so we came to takedown law as the people it was written to help. This page is about the same law pointed at the wrong person. It explains the process as the statute, the U.S. Copyright Office and the stores describe it, with the timings worked out. It is not legal advice, and the places where a lawyer earns their fee are marked.

1. Why the store removed it without asking you

In the United States, a store that hosts other people's uploads is protected from copyright liability if it follows section 512 of the Copyright Act. One condition is that when it receives a notice containing the required elements, it acts quickly to remove the material. The same section says the store is not liable for a good-faith removal "regardless of whether the material or activity is ultimately determined to be infringing."

So the safe move for the store is always to remove. It is not asked to investigate, compare the two works, or contact you first. The Copyright Office describes the sequence as notice, removal, and only then notification of the person whose material was taken down.

That order is why the first hour feels the way it does. In November 2025 the team behind No Players Online had their game pulled from Steam a week after launch. In their statement they wrote that it was crazy to them that someone could take down their game by filling out a simple form. They had spent two and a half years on it.

You are not being sued. The Copyright Office says so directly: a takedown notice does not mean a lawsuit, and if you were being sued you would be served with court papers.

2. The first hour

• Save the removal email, with full headers. Screenshot the store page as it now appears and note the time.
• Ask the store for the complete claim. You need the claimant's name, the work they say was copied, and exactly what in your game they pointed to. Stores tell claimants this can happen. Valve's notice form says the contents of a complaint, including the name and email address, may be provided to the person who posted the content.
• Do not write to the claimant yet. Anything sent in anger can be quoted later. If you do write, keep it short, factual and in writing.
• Do not re-upload the game under a new page. It reads as evasion and can turn one notice into an account problem.
• Check your other stores. Claims are often sent to several places on the same day. A removal on one store does not remove you from the others, and the ones still live are where players can be sent.

3. Before you answer, test the claim honestly

A counter-notice is sworn. Before you swear it, spend an hour trying to prove the claimant right. These are the places where a claim against an original game sometimes has something behind it.

The two public cases we cite on this page both came from people close to the game. The No Players Online developers said the claimant was a former friend who claimed to be a co-author. In February 2023, NME reported that Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic was removed from Steam after a player who had written a guide to the game filed a claim. Two cases are not a pattern, but they are a reason to look at your own history before assuming a stranger is behind it.

If the claim rests on a mechanic, a genre or an idea, it describes something copyright does not protect. Our guide to game clones sets out where that line is, with the rulings.

4. What the counter-notice must say

The statute lists four things, and asks that the notice include "substantially" these:

1. Your signature, physical or electronic.
2. The material that was removed and where it appeared before removal: your game's title and the URL of its store page.
3. A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification.
4. Your name, address and telephone number, a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the district where your address is, or, if your address is outside the United States, any district where the store may be found, and a statement that you will accept service of process from the claimant or their agent.

The Copyright Office publishes a one-page sample counter-notice. Wording along these lines, adapted from it, covers the four elements:

I request that [store] restore access to [title of your game], which was available at [URL of the store page] until it was removed on [date] following a notice of claimed infringement [reference number, if the store gave one].

Under penalty of perjury, I have a good faith belief that this material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification. [One or two factual sentences: I am the developer and copyright owner of this game. It was created by (names) between (dates). The claimant did not create any part of it.]

I consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the judicial district in which my address is located [or, if you are outside the United States: for any judicial district in which (store) may be found], and I will accept service of process from the person who submitted the notice or that person's agent.

[Full legal name, address, telephone number, email]
[Typed signature and date]

Keep it to the facts. The store's agent is checking that the elements are present, not weighing your argument. Evidence helps if the store asks for it, and it matters a great deal if this ever reaches a court, so have it ready: commit history, dated builds, contracts, licence receipts, and a registration certificate if you hold one.

Send it to the store's designated copyright agent, by the route the removal email gives you. If the email gives none, the Copyright Office's DMCA Designated Agent Directory lists the agent each registered service has named.

5. What signing costs you

Read this section before you send anything. None of it is a reason to stay silent when the game is yours. All of it should be a decision and not a surprise.

Your contact details go to the claimant. The statute requires the store to pass a copy of your counter-notice to the person who filed the claim. If you work from home, that is your home address. The statute asks for the address of the account holder whose material was removed, so if a company publishes the game, the company and its address are what belong on the notice. That is our reading. If your safety is a concern, ask a lawyer whether they can send the notice for you and what address it can carry.

You accept a U.S. court. A developer outside the United States who signs is agreeing to be sued, over this dispute, in a district where the store can be found. itch.io's terms name the federal court in San Francisco.

It is under penalty of perjury. The misrepresentation rule in section 512 runs both ways. It covers a person who knowingly misrepresents that material is infringing, and equally a person who knowingly misrepresents that material was removed by mistake. This is why section 3 comes before section 4.

It invites the claimant's next move. The only thing that stops restoration is the claimant telling the store they have filed a court action against you. Most false claimants will not. One who does has moved the dispute to a court, where evidence counts.

6. The clock, in calendar days

Once the store has your counter-notice, the statute's conditions are that it promptly sends a copy to the claimant, tells them the material will be restored in 10 business days, and restores it not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days after receiving the counter-notice, unless the claimant files suit first.

Business days hide how long that is. Worked out on a calendar, by our own count:

Three things follow from that table.

Two weeks is the floor. The statute's minimum applies even when the claim is obviously false. A store following the statutory process does not restore the game the day after you answer.

Every day before you file is added on top. The window is counted from the store's receipt of the counter-notice. The days between the removal and your answer are not part of it. A weekend spent deciding costs a weekend of sales.

Plan for three weeks. The No Players Online team wrote that they filed a counter-notice immediately, and the game was still off Steam for nearly three weeks. If the takedown lands in launch week, as theirs did, that is most of the launch.

The statute sets conditions for the store's legal protection. It does not take away a store's right, under its own agreement with you, to decide what it carries. itch.io's terms say removed content "may be replaced" in 10 to 14 business days at its discretion. Most of the time a valid counter-notice and no lawsuit means the game comes back. It is not a guarantee, and a store that does not restore it is the moment to bring in a lawyer.

7. While the game is down

• Tell players once, plainly. Say that the game was removed after a copyright claim, that you made the game, that you have filed a counter-notice, and where it can still be bought. The No Players Online statement is a good model: what happened, the dates, an apology to people who could not buy or play, no name.
• Do not name or accuse the claimant in public. You may be right. A public accusation of fraud or perjury still creates a risk for you, and it gives the other side something to file.
• Keep a record of the loss. Daily sales before the removal, wishlists, a planned sale or festival slot you missed, marketing already paid for, refunds, your own hours. If you ever claim damages, they have to be proven, and the proof is easiest to gather now.
• Answer the store on one thread. Quote the reference number each time. Ask, once and politely, for confirmation that the counter-notice was received and on what date, because that date starts the clock.
• Leave the other stores alone. Keep them live and keep them accurate. If the claimant files there too, each store needs its own counter-notice.

8. What happens next

Nothing, and the game comes back

This is how the No Players Online case ended. Their statement says the game was reinstated after the time for the claimant to respond had passed. Confirm that the page, the builds and any regional pricing came back as they were.

The claimant files a lawsuit

If the store's agent is told, inside the window, that the claimant has filed an action seeking a court order against you, the game stays down while the case runs. Get a copyright lawyer the same day. Do not answer court papers yourself.

A second claim arrives

The statute does not limit how many notices a person can send. If a new notice follows the restoration, answer it the same way, tell the store it comes from the same claimant about the same game, and take the whole file to a lawyer. Repeated notices after a counter-notice went unanswered are useful evidence of what the claimant knew.

The removal was not a copyright notice at all

A trademark complaint, or a store acting under its own content rules, is outside this process. The counter-notice and its 10 to 14 business days apply only to copyright notices under section 512. Apple, for example, describes its App Store content dispute route as contacting the provider of the disputed app and asking the two sides to resolve it directly. Read the removal email for which kind of complaint it was, and use the appeal route it names.

9. Holding the claimant to account

Section 512(f) says that a person who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing is liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the person accused, when the store relied on the misrepresentation in removing the material. Valve prints that warning above its notice form.

The word that decides these cases is "knowingly." The leading appeals ruling is Lenz v. Universal Music, from the Ninth Circuit, amended in 2016. It holds three things worth knowing.

• The test is what the claimant actually believed. Quoting its earlier decision in Rossi, the court said a copyright owner "cannot be liable simply because an unknowing mistake is made." A claimant who was wrong, even unreasonably wrong, but sincere, is not liable under this section.
• Deliberately not looking can count as knowing. The court held that willful blindness may be used to show knowledge: a claimant who believed there was a high probability the claim was false and took deliberate steps to avoid finding out.
• You do not need a large provable loss to bring the claim. The court held that a plaintiff may seek nominal damages for a section 512(f) misrepresentation.

Claims under this section have succeeded. In Online Policy Group v. Diebold, a California federal court found in 2004 that a company had knowingly misrepresented that critics infringed its copyrights, and the company later agreed to pay $125,000 in damages and fees, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which brought the case. They are also uncommon, because proving what someone believed is hard. This is why the record matters. A message in which you explained to the claimant, before they filed, why the game is yours is evidence of what they knew. The No Players Online developers wrote that they had spent months telling the claimant the allegations were unfounded.

There are two places to bring such a claim.

• Federal court. Full remedies, real cost. A lawyer can tell you whether your losses justify it and whether other claims, such as a declaration that your game does not infringe, belong beside it.
• The Copyright Claims Board. The Copyright Office's small-claims tribunal hears claims of misrepresentation in takedown notices and counter-notices, and no lawyer is required. It can award up to $30,000 in actual damages for a misrepresentation claim and no statutory damages, and it says plainly that these damages can be hard to prove. The respondent must have a U.S. mailing address, and can opt out within sixty days of being served, which leaves you with federal court. Its FAQ gives a three-year limit for filing.

Be honest with yourself about the goal. For most small studios the win is the game back on sale and a clean record with the store. A damages claim is worth a conversation with a lawyer when the loss was large, the claimant is identifiable and in the United States, and you can show they knew.

10. Before it happens

• Put every contributor on paper. Co-founders, friends who helped early, contractors, composers. A signed agreement saying who owns what is the single document that ends most of these disputes before they start.
• Keep a licence folder. For every third-party asset: the licence text as it read on the day you got it, and the receipt.
• Keep dated proof of authorship. Version control history, archived builds, design documents. They show what you made and when.
• Register the copyright. A certificate from a registration made within five years of first publication is prima facie evidence of the copyright's validity and of the facts stated in it. It is the quickest thing you can hand a store or a court. Our registration guide covers the filing.
• Do not launch on one store only, if you can avoid it. A second storefront does not stop a false claim. It means a claim on one store leaves players somewhere to go.
• Keep a counter-notice ready. Fill in the Copyright Office sample with your game's details and your publishing entity's address, and store it with your release checklist. On the day it is needed, an hour matters.
• Settle old disagreements before launch week. If someone has already told you they believe part of the game is theirs, a launch is when they are most likely to act and when it costs you most. Deal with it in writing, with a lawyer if needed, while the game is not yet on sale.

Common questions

Does the store check whether a copyright claim is true?

The statute does not ask it to. It asks the store to act on a notice that contains the required elements, and it protects the store for removing in good faith whether or not the material turns out to infringe.

How long will my game be down?

If you file a counter-notice and the claimant does not sue, the statutory window is 10 to 14 business days from the day the store receives your counter-notice, which is 14 to 20 calendar days, plus however long you took to file. With no counter-notice, there is no date at all.

The waiting period is tied to the counter-notice. If you know the claimant and the claim came from a misunderstanding, a written withdrawal sent by them to the store's agent is the only route we know of that may bring the game back sooner. Whether it does is up to the store.

Do I need a lawyer to send a counter-notice?

No. The Copyright Office provides a sample you can fill in yourself. A lawyer becomes important if any part of the claim might be true, if the claimant is a former collaborator, if you are worried about your address reaching the claimant, or if the claimant sues.

I am not in the United States. Does this apply to me?

If the store follows the U.S. process, yes, and the large stores accept counter-notices from developers anywhere. You will be consenting to a U.S. federal court in a district where the store can be found. Take that seriously, and ask a lawyer if the claimant seems likely to sue.

Will the claimant see my home address?

The statute requires the store to give the claimant a copy of the counter-notice, and the counter-notice must contain a name, address and telephone number. See section 5 for what that means if you publish through a company.

Can I sue someone for a false takedown?

Section 512(f) allows it where the claimant knowingly and materially misrepresented that your game infringes. You have to show what they knew, which is the hard part. The Copyright Claims Board hears these claims for up to $30,000 in actual damages against respondents in the United States.

Does a takedown count against my account?

Section 512 requires stores to have a policy for terminating repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances, and each store decides how notices count toward it. This is one more reason to answer a false notice instead of waiting it out. Ask the store, on the same thread, to confirm that the notice no longer counts against your account once the game is restored.

The person who filed the claim is selling a copy of my game. What then?

Then there are two jobs: your counter-notice to get your game back, and your own takedown notice against their copy. Our guide to a game being sold under someone else's name covers the second one. Their false notice against you, sent while selling your work, is strong evidence of what they knew.

This page describes United States law and the stores' published pages as of 9 October 2026. The statute, the Copyright Office pages and the linked ruling are the authority, and stores change their procedures. The calendar counts and the checks in section 3 are our own analysis. It is general information, not legal advice about your situation.