Someone is selling your game. What to do, in order.
You searched your game's name and found it on a store you never uploaded to. Different title, maybe. Different publisher name. Your screenshots, your levels, a price.
A game we shipped was extracted, rebuilt and resold. We remember the first hour: the anger, then the urge to post about it everywhere, then not knowing who to write to. This page is the order we wish we had followed. It explains the process as the stores and the law describe it. It is not legal advice, and the places where a lawyer earns their fee are marked.
The short answer
- Save evidence before you do anything else. Listings disappear, and you want a record of what was sold, by whom, and for how much.
- Work out what was copied. Your files and art are covered by copyright. Your idea and your genre are not. The name and logo are a trademark question.
- Send a takedown notice to the store through its own copyright form or agent. For a wholesale copy, this is the fastest route and it costs nothing.
- Expect one of three outcomes: removal, silence, or a counter-notice from the seller. Each has a next step.
- Decide separately about the money. A takedown removes a listing. Getting paid for the sales that already happened is a different process.
1. Save the evidence first
The listing can vanish the moment the seller hears from you or from the store. Once it is gone, so is the easiest proof that it existed. Before you report, post, or message anyone, collect two folders.
What they are selling
- The full URL of the listing and the store's ID for it, plus the publisher and developer names shown.
- Screenshots of the whole page with the date and address bar visible: title, price, description, screenshots, trailer, release date, review count.
- An independent capture. The Internet Archive's Save Page Now makes a dated copy you did not produce yourself.
- Every other place the same seller lists it. Check the publisher's page on that store, then the other stores.
- If you can afford it, one purchased copy and its receipt. The receipt shows a sale happened. The files let you compare. Keep the download untouched.
What shows the work is yours
- Your original store page and its release date.
- Version control history, dated project files, and old builds.
- Public traces that predate the copy: devlogs, trailers, jam submissions, social posts.
- Side-by-side comparisons of the same scene in both games. The strongest details are the ones only the original author would have: a typo, a placeholder you never removed, a credit, the same bug.
- If you have one, your copyright registration number.
One caution. Claim only what is yours. If your game uses licensed asset packs, another game using the same packs under its own license is not copying you. Build your comparison on the work you or your team made.
Hold off on the public post until the evidence is saved. Telling your players matters, and it comes later.
2. Work out what kind of copying this is
The right tool depends on what was taken. United States copyright law protects the expression you created, and says plainly that it does not extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, or method of operation.
| What you found | What it usually is | The usual first route |
|---|---|---|
| Your build, re-uploaded under another name | Copying of the whole work | Copyright notice to the store |
| Your game with a new title screen, renamed characters, or swapped logo | Copying with changes on top | Copyright notice, with side-by-side comparisons |
| Your art, music, or levels inside a different game | Copying of parts of the work | Copyright notice naming the specific assets |
| Your name, logo, or capsule art used to sell something else | A trademark and consumer-confusion problem, sometimes copyright too | The store's trademark or impersonation report |
| A new game that plays like yours but shares no files, art, or text | Imitation of an idea | Often not something a copyright notice can reach. Talk to a lawyer before filing. |
The last row is the hard one to hear. A game built from scratch to feel like yours hurts, and it may still be legal. Sending a copyright notice about it is risky for you, for reasons in the next section.
3. Write the notice
In the United States, stores that host other people's uploads follow the notice-and-takedown process in section 512 of the Copyright Act, the part of the DMCA that covers this. The statute lists six things a notice must contain. In plain words:
- Your signature, physical or electronic. A typed full legal name is what the store forms ask for.
- The work that was copied: your game, by title, with a link to your original listing.
- The copy: the exact URL of every infringing listing, so the store can find it.
- How to reach you: name, address, phone, email.
- A statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorized by you, your agent, or the law.
- A statement that the notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the owner or are authorized to act for the owner.
Most stores give you a form that asks for these one at a time. Where a store only gives an email address, a notice along these lines covers the six elements:
I am the developer and copyright owner of [your game], first released on [date] at [link to your original listing].
The listing at [exact URL of the copy], published as [the seller's title] by [the seller's publisher name], reproduces my game without permission. [One or two sentences on what is identical, with links to your comparison images.]
I have a good faith belief that the use of this material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
The information in this notice is accurate, and I state under penalty of perjury that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on the owner's behalf.
[Full legal name, address, phone, email]
[Typed signature and date]
Keep it factual. No threats, no adjectives. The person reading it handles a queue of these and needs to verify yours quickly.
Two things to know before you sign.
It is a sworn statement. The same law makes anyone who knowingly materially misrepresents that something is infringing liable for the damages that causes, including the other side's legal fees. Valve repeats that warning on its own form. This is why the table above matters: file about copied work, not about a similar idea.
Your details may be passed on. Microsoft, for example, says it may share your notice with third parties, including the alleged infringer. If you work from home and do not want your address in a stranger's inbox, an agent or lawyer can file on your behalf.
4. Send it to the right place
Use the store's own copyright channel, not general support and not a public reply. These are the official routes as of October 2026.
| Store | Where notices go | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Steam | Valve's copyright infringement form | Asks for the Steam URL, a description of both works, your contact details and a typed signature. |
| itch.io | Email to support@itch.io, per its terms of service | The terms list the same six elements and warn that a notice missing them may be invalid. |
| Google Play | Google's legal removal tool: choose Google Play: Apps, then the copyright option | Each Google product needs its own report. |
| Apple App Store | App Store Content Dispute form | Apple says it will contact the app's provider and ask them to work with you directly. Expect a conversation, and keep it in writing. |
| Epic Games Store | Epic's intellectual property infringement page | Goes to Epic's designated copyright agent. |
| Microsoft Store and Xbox | Microsoft's infringement notice page | Separate online forms for the Store on Windows and on Xbox. Microsoft says the forms are the fastest route. |
| PlayStation Store | Sony's copyright reporting procedure | Sent to Sony Interactive Entertainment's intellectual property department by email or post. |
| Nintendo eShop | Nintendo's intellectual property policy | Sent to Nintendo of America's designated agent by email, post or fax. |
| Anywhere else | The U.S. Copyright Office's DMCA Designated Agent Directory | Lists the agent each registered service has named to receive notices. Useful for smaller stores, file hosts, and the copy's own website. |
File with every store that carries the copy, on the same day if you can. Send one notice per store and list every infringing URL on that store in it. Save each confirmation email and ticket number in your evidence folder.
You do not need to live in the United States, or to have registered your copyright, to send a notice. The large stores take them from developers anywhere. If you are in the European Union, the Digital Services Act also requires hosting services to offer a notice and action mechanism for illegal content.
5. What happens after you send it
The listing comes down
This is the common result for a wholesale copy with clear evidence. Check back over the following weeks. Sellers who do this at volume re-upload under new names.
Nothing happens
Stores do not all move at the same speed. In February 2025 the solo developer of The Backrooms 1998 found his game on console stores under another title and publisher. According to Plagiarism Today's account, after he filed notices two console stores removed it quickly and a third did not act at first.
If a week passes, reply on the same ticket with the reference number and the evidence again, rather than starting over. Check that the notice went to the store's named agent and contained all six elements. If the store still does not answer, that is a reasonable moment to pay for a lawyer's letter.
The seller files a counter-notice
The law gives the uploader a reply: a sworn statement that the removal was a mistake. If the store receives a valid one, it must put the listing back not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days later, unless you tell the store that you have filed a court action against the seller.
That is a short clock, and it is the point where you should talk to a copyright lawyer. Someone willing to swear a false counter-notice has also had to give the store a name and address and consent to a court's jurisdiction, which a lawyer can use.
If you are on the other side of this, with your own original game taken down by a false claim, the counter-notice is the same tool, and it is there for you.
6. The money is a separate question
Notice-and-takedown is about removal. It does not return the money the seller already collected. You can ask the store what happens to those proceeds, and it is worth asking, but the notice process does not promise an answer.
In the United States, recovering money means a claim against the seller, and registration decides a lot of it:
- Copyright exists from the moment you make the work. Registration is voluntary, but for a U.S. work you cannot bring an infringement suit until you have registered.
- Statutory damages and attorney's fees are not available for infringement that began before registration, unless you registered within three months of first publishing the game.
- Online registration costs $45 for a single author or $65 for the standard application.
- Mailing a copy to yourself is not a substitute. The Copyright Office says so directly.
For smaller claims there is the Copyright Claims Board, a tribunal inside the Copyright Office. It caps awards at $30,000, costs $100 in filing fees paid in two parts, and is built to be used without a lawyer. It is voluntary: the other side can opt out, and then your option is federal court. To file there you need a registration or a pending application.
Whether any of this is worth pursuing depends on who the seller is, where they are, and how much they made. Many sellers of copied games are hard to identify and harder to collect from. A lawyer can tell you in one conversation whether your case is the exception.
7. Before it happens again
None of this stops copying. It makes the next takedown faster and leaves you with more options.
- Register the game within three months of release. The three-month window above is the reason.
- Keep an evidence folder from the first day. Dated builds, repository history, original art files, contracts with anyone who contributed. Check that those contracts say you own what they made.
- Search for your game on a schedule. Your title, your tagline, a line of your store description, your capsule art in a reverse image search. Check the stores you are not on.
- Save your notice. The second one takes ten minutes if the first is in a file.
- Tell your players where the real game is. A plain list of official stores on your site and store page helps them, and it helps a store reviewer see which listing is the original.
And tell other developers. When Elston Studios found its game re-uploaded to Steam under another title, it traced the same uploader to a second stolen game and warned a third developer in public. Both copies were removed. Much of what small studios know about this, they learned from each other.
Common questions
Should I contact the seller first?
Valve's form suggests it, because some disputes are misunderstandings. A complete copy of your game under a new name is rarely a misunderstanding. If you do write, save your evidence first and keep the message short and factual.
Do I need a lawyer to send a takedown notice?
No. The store forms are written for rights holders to fill in themselves. A lawyer becomes important if the seller counter-notices, if the store does not act, if you want money back, or if what was copied is closer to an idea than to your files.
Do I need a registered copyright to send one?
No. The six required elements do not include a registration. Registration matters for lawsuits and for damages.
How long does a takedown take?
There is no fixed deadline for the store's first response. The law asks stores to act expeditiously and leaves the word undefined. The only fixed period is the 10 to 14 business days that follow a counter-notice.
They changed the name and some art. Does that still count?
Changing a title screen does not make copied work new. Show the store what is the same, scene by scene. If very little is the same, read the table in section 2 again before filing.
The copy is on a store I have never heard of. What then?
Look the service up in the Copyright Office's agent directory, and look for a copyright or legal page on the site. If the site has neither, its hosting company and its payment processor have their own complaint channels.
This page describes United States procedure and the stores' published policies as of 6 October 2026. Policies change; the linked pages are the authority. It is general information, not legal advice about your situation.