Roblox says no to DMCA data request amid piracy scandal

pcgamesn.com:

In response to an ongoing DMCA copyright infringement lawsuit involving several popular Roblox games, Roblox’s legal team objected to a court order that would compel the company to disclose the personal information of up to 420,000 users, TorrentFreak reports.

Christopher Boomer, the developer behind the Roblox games Weight Lifting Simulator 2 and Muscle Legends, claims other platform developers cloned his games and copied his artwork to reap the rewards of tens of millions of views.

In the subpoena, Boomer’s legal team requested information sufficient to identify the owners and operators of infringing URLs, including the creators’ and operators’ real names, phone numbers and IP addresses. The subpoena also sought identifying information for people involved with specific developer groups related to the alleged infringement and about 10 specific Roblox users that Boomer suspects of direct involvement.

Taken together, the number of people potentially impacted by the subpoena would be about 460,000 users, according to TorrentFreak’s data assessment.

California court issued the subpoena on July 11, according to Roblox’s objection, and Boomer’s legal team served it on July 12. That gave Roblox only 10 days to provide the trove of information. Rather than complying, Roblox issued its response on July 21.

Firstly noting that the short return period is “especially unreasonable,” Roblox’s legal team then objected to the broad requests. The company claims some requested information isn’t related to the purported copyright infringement, some of the documentation doesn’t exist in a producible format or isn’t accessible due to undue burden or cost, and the requests go beyond what’s required by the DMCA. It also suggests some