"Yesterday we were made aware of an automated claim submitted to Redbubble on behalf of A24 and Backrooms movie. We immediately began the process to reverse it and reinstate the listing."
Reminds me of the notices Microsoft sent to various universities many years ago regarding the sharing of StarOffice and OpenOffice on bittorrent/Kazaa/etc networks because the contained the string 'Office'.
Redbubble's automated claim system is generally very corporate-sided. This has happened many times with other ideas in the commons like the words Thor and Loki. Bad claims only get resolved when people with a following complain loud enough online. Your follower count is your capital.
These companies hire out third parties who are very aggressive and often use half-assed automated systems with no oversight to find "infringing" content. They don't care about the accuracy of their notices. They know most people won't know how to combat this or won't risk the fallback from the platform if they try to fight it. The platforms themselves make their process convoluted and automated because they don't want to pay a person to deal with the flood of DMCA notices or the complaints from their users who are getting screwed over by them. It's very telling how often these things only get resolved once it's publicly posted about on social media. Support shouldn't be something users can only get if their complaints get enough likes/views/upvotes on other platforms.
The companies carelessly sending out DMCA notices just want big numbers they can put in reports to the people paying them. "Look how many takedowns this month! Your copyrighted works are so popular and everyone is trying to steal from you! Better keep paying us for protection!"
Actual DMCA notices are sent "under penalty of perjury" and with a "good faith belief" of accuracy, but nothing happens when they do this shit anyway. Platforms can act on any request even if it's not a proper notice under the law just because it's easier for them. Until copyright holders start seeing severe consequences for abusing copyright law this is just going to continue because it's profitable for them to screw over the artists whose works get attacked.
> In an official response posted to the Backrooms movie Instagram account, A24 explained, "As Kane Parsons has made clear, Backrooms is one part of an infinitely bigger ecosystem, rife with creatives who have every right to tell their own version of the story. Yesterday we were made aware of an automated claim submitted to Redbubble on behalf of A24 and Backrooms movie. We immediately began the process to reverse it and reinstate the listing. A24 makes no claim of ownership over the yellow wallpaper, the original post referencing it, or any of the community works that have since been built around it. We will continue to support the artists who, like Kane, were inspired by it."
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[ 9.6 ms ] story [ 88.0 ms ] threadhttps://kotaku.com/backrooms-director-kane-parsons-a24-copyr...
It was a bug and has been resolved.
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1kdkk2/microsof...
The companies carelessly sending out DMCA notices just want big numbers they can put in reports to the people paying them. "Look how many takedowns this month! Your copyrighted works are so popular and everyone is trying to steal from you! Better keep paying us for protection!"
Actual DMCA notices are sent "under penalty of perjury" and with a "good faith belief" of accuracy, but nothing happens when they do this shit anyway. Platforms can act on any request even if it's not a proper notice under the law just because it's easier for them. Until copyright holders start seeing severe consequences for abusing copyright law this is just going to continue because it's profitable for them to screw over the artists whose works get attacked.
> UPDATE: 2026/07/18 10:51 EST
> A24 Responds
> In an official response posted to the Backrooms movie Instagram account, A24 explained, "As Kane Parsons has made clear, Backrooms is one part of an infinitely bigger ecosystem, rife with creatives who have every right to tell their own version of the story. Yesterday we were made aware of an automated claim submitted to Redbubble on behalf of A24 and Backrooms movie. We immediately began the process to reverse it and reinstate the listing. A24 makes no claim of ownership over the yellow wallpaper, the original post referencing it, or any of the community works that have since been built around it. We will continue to support the artists who, like Kane, were inspired by it."