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Conatus Creative, the developer of River City Ransom: Underground has responded to the delisting of its game from Steam, a result of a DMCA (digital millennium copyright act) strike filed by co-composer Alex Mauer. Mauer has said that Conatus Creative doesn’t have the rights to use the music she created, although she worked with the game’s developers and composers. She claims she didn’t give permission for the use of her music. So, Conatus Creative are changing it all and moving on.
The Conatus Creative’s founder Daniel Crenna has chimed in with his say on the matter, in a Steam Community Page post, stating, ‘Let me make it absolutely clear – Alex Mauer’s claim that the game violates her copyright is false. She is a co-creator of the music, with Dino Lionetti and Rich Vreeland’.
Crenna goes onto say that as an independent developer, Conatus Creative lack the funding required for such a long legal process, but that it did pay her, ‘when Rich offered to pay Alex an equal share of the music fee for her contribution to the game soundtrack, she emailed back: “oh that’s awesome man i’m all for it thanks!” Rich has shown us the documentation that Alex was paid in full’.
As a result of this action, the game has been delisted from Steam while the developer replaces the soundtrack with one that has no involvement from Mauer. It’s hoped that the new soundtrack will also prevent further DMCA claims Mauer has made against YouTube and Twitch users who’ve released content related to the game.
Mauer has previous form when it comes to this, filing claims against another game she’s worked on. Starr Mazer DSP is one of these, receiving a copyright strike when Mauer said that only the original Starr Mazer could use the soundtrack and not the spin-off, Starr Mazer DSP. In this instance the developers Imagos seemed to have a stronger legal footing, recently posting a temporary restraining order against Mauer, preventing any more DMCA claims being filed, oh and death threats. Yes, really.
River City Ransom: Underground is a follow up to River City Ransom. Set 25 years after the events of the first game, Underground is a side-scrolling beat-em-up in the style of Double Dragon with added role-playing elements. Playing as Alex and Ryan, you must take to the streets to help a new crop of fighters defeat the bad guys.
It’s all fun and games this music stuff.
River City Ransom: Underground was released on Feb 27, for PC.
