A second YouTuber was harassed with DMCA complaints by the Escape from Tarkov team

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, also known as the DMCA, is supposed to be a way for the owners of a piece of intellectual property to enforce their legal rights. When someone uses content — be it video game footage or a hit pop song — copyright holders can stop YouTubers or Twitch streamers from making money off of that content without their consent. The process is fast and fluid, requiring very little input from copyright holders before content is temporarily removed from the internet.

And, as the situation with Battlestate Games’ Escape from Tarkov has shown, the DMCA claims process is also ripe for exploitation and abuse.

Last month, Polygon reported on how Battlestate Games abused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Rather than choosing to cite piracy or unfair use of their content, Battlestate told Polygon that it knowingly made 47 claims against a single YouTuber who goes by the handle Eroktic. Battlestate’s goal was not to prevent Eroktic from using their content. Instead, it was simply trying to suppress what it termed as misinformation and “negative hype” in his videos.

Reached for comment, representatives of Battlestate said at the time that the organization was fully aware its was misusing the DMCA system — and defended the company’s decision to do so.

At the same time, representatives of the Russian-owned company asserted it had never taken such drastic actions against someone before.

After a monthlong investigation, we’ve discovered that may not necessarily be true.

Shortly after our story was published, a YouTuber who goes by the handle “EL_Dee” contacted Polygon to say that they, too, had been the recipient of 47 DMCA claims related to their Escape from Tarkov content. They claim the reason they were given was that their YouTube videos featured Battlestate’s watermark and logo, shown on Tarkov’s title screen.

Many other YouTubers use these same images, however. EL_Dee believes they were singled out, just like Eroktic, because of their “negative hype.”

Polygon reached out to Battlestate to confirm EL_Dee’s claims. It took over a month for the company to respond, at which point it shirked responsibility.

“We have made our internal investigation into the matter,” a Battlestate representative told Polygon in an email. “It appears that copyright takedown notices were submitted nearly 8 months ago by AbsolutSoft, a company that was developing some parts of [Tarkov]. To the best of my knowledge, all affected videos are fully accessible now.

“Following the recent events we have established an internal procedure to make sure that the company, its employees and agents are very careful with everything that constitutes a legal process.”

But, as it turns out, AbsolutSoft is more than just a subcontractor. The core of that company, including Tarkov’s current project leader and producer Nikita Buyanov, has close ties to Battlestate Games. From our 2016 preview of Escape from Tarkov:

Buyanov says that the game’s graphical fidelity is thanks to his team’s years spent working on FPS titles in the Contract Wars series, while the authenticity and attention to detail comes from his team’s real-world military experience.

”We have a mix of talent, some veteran developers, some new to game development. But everyone loves guns and FPS games. One of the studio leads is actually a former Spetsnaz officer, the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Special Forces.”

Even more damning, EL_Dee says that it was Buyanov himself who personally requested that negative videos be removed from YouTube prior to the DMCA actions by AbsolutSoft. Polygon reached out to Battlestate to see if Buyanov was involved in the DMCA complaints against EL_Dee, but it declined to comment.

Furthermore, a representative from Battlestate refused to go into detail about the ongoing relationship between AbsolutSoft and their company.

Regardless of who personally authorized these DMCA claims, or which company made them, they have nonetheless had a serious negative impact on both Eroktic and EL_Dee. Both streamers draw a significant portion of their income from playing Escape from Tarkov with and for their communities. Losing their videos, even for a month, has had long-lasting effects, they say.

“I lost 80-90% of the views on Youtube,” Eroktic told Polygon in an email. “Basically, no income from youtube and I dropped from 1700 subscribers on twitch to 600 and it is still dropping.

“I am not streaming for last 1 week now and I am not uploading videos on youtube anymore because my community only wants me to play Tarkov,” Eroktic said, expressing his frustration that his community is still requesting content from a developer that he now finds distasteful. “I would rather play and provide content for heavy pay to win game full of micro-transactions that costs $60, than support developers that can’t accept criticism and suggestions.”

EL_Dee expressed similar sentiments.

“I went from having over 5k subs we were on our way to 6k when the copystrikes hit me,” they wrote. “My videos were getting 10k views or more, some were seeing 50k views and all of that stopped when they copystriked me, took time to create a pocket of hate for the name ‘EL_DEE’ on reddit. It’s a 61 day ban on their sub reddit if you even say my name.”

“This company took my youtube down for 3 weeks,” El_Dee continued. “If I didn’t have the gall to fight it, my channel would have been deleted, thats what they were hoping for. To scare me into not fighting. It was a scare tactic to take down videos that weren’t 100% positive.”

Polygon has reached out to AbsolutSoft for comment.