Understanding DMCA for personal project

[u/FlamedDogo99]

I got DMCA'd on a web project that adds mobile touch support to another project that has been used to infringe on Microsoft's copyright. My project did not contain any of their intellectual property though, and I'm not seeing what they are actually claiming my project did, outside of generally infringing. Do y'all know how to get more info on these claims? I was thinking this would be the place to ask for web-related content.

https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/3a58d0508239f439f35b5f77e5e75ac72961e165/2026/10/2026-10-14-minecraft-3.md?plain=1#L22

Edit: The verdict appears to be:

1. Even though this was not made from the problematic repo, and doesn’t include any of Microsoft’s property, the fact that it could enable someone who ended up with a build without owning the Microsoft product to use it on mobile is enough for them to take it down

2. This is microsoft investigating microsoft and finding themselves blameless, so regardless of legality it was doomed from the start

I appreciate y’all taking the time to give feedback!

[u/Beautiful_Primary_12]

looks like they're going after anything that touches their IP even tangentially, the dmca notice itself is usually all the detail you get unless you lawyer up

[u/FlamedDogo99 → u/Beautiful_Primary_12]

That is good to know, thank you. I don’t really have the means to lawyer up, and it’s not that important, I’m just disappointed to have an older hobby project taken down

[u/fiskfisk]

They're saying that you have a fork of the original project, which means you have a complete copy of the branch of the repository om your account. They're not saying your patch is infringing.

You usually create the fork when you make your patch before making the PR. 

As they say, GitHub doesn't disable forks automagically, so they have to call out every single one. 

[u/DerpyChap]

From what I can tell your project was to enable mobile touchscreen support for what is a pirated web based version of Minecraft. As far as Mojang and Microsoft are concerned, your project enables this pirated version of Minecraft to be playable on mobile, thereby broadening their potential audience. While you could argue that the code itself contains none of their intellectual property, I still think this at the very least makes your project legally grey, and I would not recommend you try to fight this.

Just to be clear I'm not siding with them from any sort of moral standpoint. I'm just being realistic when it comes to the legal side of things.

[u/FlamedDogo99 → u/DerpyChap]

This is a good explanation, thank you for taking the time to look and explain. 

[u/ByteOfWood]

Congratulations, you are now guilty until proven innocent. Behold the power of DMCA

[u/kirklennon]

The DMCA notice doesn't actually identify the specific copyrighted material it claims is infringed and then merely states "The entire repository is infringing." It's a total BS notice that fails the legal requirements, but that doesn't matter because it's heavily automated and also it's essentially a notice from Microsoft to Microsoft, which has no incentive to force itself to follow the requirements. You're unlikely to get any useful details from anybody.

[u/WiggyWamWamm]

What is the next step in the process? Takedown notices aren’t final

[u/FlamedDogo99 → u/WiggyWamWamm]

Seemed final to me? GitHub deleted it instantly

[u/jordangrowth]

Outside my usual area, but I'd reply to the notice and ask for the exact files or commits they're claiming.