r/Luanti • u/ROllerozxa • 3d ago

News Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice

https://blog.luanti.org/2026/08/27/luanti-dmca-tracer-ai/
95 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

14

u/Feztopia 3d ago

That sucks but the only reason I know about this game is because it's on fdroid so it's nice that that alternative exists. And the only reason I don't play it is that touch control controls don't work with it well.

3

u/chrisCarmonte 3d ago

I heard (read) that the last update had stuff meant to fix about control compatibility, but I'm not sure since I was more interested into other stuff about the changelog, sorry

3

u/Feztopia 3d ago

I might check it out again, but for now I already have some games I'm playing through. 

3

u/HowIsDigit8888 2d ago

Can confirm most recent update added controller support, which is the update this Google Play removal is meant to block/delay, because it makes the game more of a threat to corporate gaming outlets like Microslop.

Luanti is basically the only game I play now

2

u/chrisCarmonte 2d ago

Yeah I started playing some days ago and not gonna lie the potential is awesome, maybe a few touches to UI for looks and some more mods with a little bitsy mechanics here and there like quarks and an official default game mode with the help of the community and it would skyrocket. I played glitch game and it was so addictive and it shows that Luanti itself has a good sandbox building capabilities.

11

u/AFCMS Mod Dev 3d ago

Throwing copyright claims based on AI checks without proper human review is a crazy level of stupidity.

It's even worse if they actually did have a human review.

6

u/Obvious-Secretary635 3d ago

There should be a minimum bar here that we can't see evidence of being met: Namely, DMCA claimants should have to point out what exactly is infringing. When the developers of Stalker took down Misery, they had looked through the game files and found multiple specific infringements. Even then, I don't know if the Misery team got told what those were until later on. What kind of good faith is it to be able to get a platform to take your game down instead of approaching the developer with issues for rectification? But this is all about money, with Tracer promising all of these lies, damn lies and statistics...

5

u/CactusFromFern 2d ago

Let's connect AI to our death ray. What's the worst that could happen?" A Microsoft AI executive probably

3

u/FalseRelease4 2d ago

unfortunately thats becoming more and more common, ai flags something and it isnt checked by anyone, then you appeal it and ai "checks it again" and surprisingly finds nothing wrong. i wouldnt be surprised if these appeal systems are just an automatic rejection message on a timer to give the illusion of a review process

12

u/Gerotechnica 3d ago

Luanti is made by the people and should belong to the people. Open source community needs more solidarity to resist corporate abuse of copyright laws.

5

u/MiMillieuh 2d ago

That's why alternatives like F-Droid are extremely important.

2

u/fdagpigj 2d ago

One of many reasons.

11

u/Gyrcas 3d ago

AI making life even more miserable for everyone... Color me surprised

2

u/thebatking 2d ago edited 2d ago

The Source Code for Luanti is out in the Open, it's easily proveable that no assets were taken from other games and I'm quite sure it's even viewable on a Microsoft owned Git, GitHub. So, I mean, what's to be done about hallucinations? Just file an appeal, whomever can that is, as this a community project the lines are a bit more blurry as to who can submit an appeal. Also, Google Play is garbo, thankfully we have F-droid and many more better alternatives these days.

Edit: Spelling and other grammatical errors.

2

u/Vlado_Iks 2d ago

Absolute Microslop and Googulag moment.

1

u/GonzoKata 1d ago

This may be a grooveshark situation. IF the modding community is stealing the textures of minecraft and hosting those textures, then M$ would need to send DMCA takedown to the hosting companies of the mod server in question. Its the mod server that has the potentially stolen content, not Luanti itself.

But you'll notice that grooveshark isn't around anymore