There is a 1999 Japanese point-and-click adventure game in which a teddy bear navigates a surreal galactic civil war. It sold a small physical print run, found almost no audience at the time, and spent two decades in quiet obscurity. Then the internet discovered it, and someone decided it needed to disappear.
That someone was operating under the name Graceware, and for the better part of three years they waged a systematic campaign of DMCA takedown notices against anyone who posted footage, screenshots, fan art, or even a passing mention of Cookie's Bustle online. Since 2022, a number of websites and individual creators received frivolous takedown requests on behalf of Graceware, covering everything from let's play videos and fan art to simply mentioning the title of the game. YouTube videos vanished. Archive links broke. The game was being methodically scrubbed from the record.
The problem for Graceware was that it eventually targeted the wrong organisation. The Video Game History Foundation (VGHF), a US non-profit dedicated to preserving gaming's cultural record, had acquired a rare physical copy of Cookie's Bustle through a donation and posted about it. Graceware filed a takedown. The VGHF filed lawyers.
A troll without a title
An individual going by Brandon White, or using the corporate name Graceware SL, had repeatedly sent DMCA takedown notices to the VGHF via the UK trade association Ukie. The foundation's legal team investigated and could find no credible evidence that White actually owned the rights to the game. If Brandon White does in fact own the copyright to Cookie's Bustle, he has not been able to prove it. When asked for documentation to back up his legal threat, he would not produce it.
Takedown notices for Cookie's Bustle were issued through Ukie, a video game trade organisation in the UK. Ukie utilises an IP management company called Web Capio, which scrapes the internet for potential copyright infringement and fires off automated takedown notices. The VGHF says the service has reportedly boasted that, compared to competitors, it does not require the majority of its takedowns to be verified by a human. In one instance, the organisation received a takedown from Graceware pointing to a webpage that merely described that the VGHF owned a copy of Cookie's Bustle. In other words, a legal notice demanding the removal of content that confirmed the game existed.
The VGHF pressed Ukie and Web Capio for proof of ownership. None came. With that lack of proof in mind, Ukie confirmed it had suspended DMCA takedown services for Graceware. Without Ukie's services, Graceware can no longer issue wide-scale automated takedowns for Cookie's Bustle.
A bigger question than one game
The VGHF has been characteristically blunt about the broader stakes. Assuming that Graceware's claim on Cookie's Bustle is spurious, then it is simply an "orphan work", one whose copyright holder is completely unknown, just like "roughly half" of games released before 1995, according to the VGHF. Orphan works occupy a frustrating legal grey zone: while Cookie's Bustle is likely an orphan work, that does not confer special privileges. The game is still protected under copyright and is not in the public domain.
That legal ambiguity is precisely what makes these works so vulnerable. Preservation groups lack the certainty needed to freely share them, while bad actors can exploit the same uncertainty to assert fake ownership with minimal effort or cost. The VGHF has framed its stand on this one obscure title as a matter of principle: "if we care about video games as art and as cultural history, we need to stand up for our legal right to document out-of-print orphan games, and to confront the copyright trolls who stand in the way."
There are legitimate arguments on multiple sides here. Copyright systems exist to protect creators, and the DMCA's notice-and-takedown framework was designed to give rights holders a fast, accessible tool against genuine infringement. Overhauling it risks making life harder for actual creators trying to protect their work from piracy. The challenge is that Graceware was able to operate for years because it targeted large platforms that comply quickly with takedowns, or individuals without the resources to push back. The system, as designed, rewards speed over scrutiny.
The VGHF has made clear it has "not ruled out legal action if harmed by future spurious takedown requests from Graceware." Meanwhile, Graceware still holds three outstanding trademark applications in the United States for the name "Cookie's Bustle", though these have not been approved by the USPTO, which limits their practical use to effectively nothing. The applications are set to expire in April 2027.
The real question raised by this case is not whether one non-profit defeated one troll. It is whether automated takedown infrastructure, managed with minimal human oversight, is fit for purpose when it can be weaponised this easily against legitimate cultural preservation work. Materials related to Cookie's Bustle now sit safely in the VGHF's digital archive. The broader problem, however, is not archived. It is waiting for the next obscure game and the next opportunist willing to exploit a system that still does not require proof before pulling content offline.