GoKawiilLuanti’s Android app is currently not available on the Google Play Store due to a baseless DMCA notice filed on behalf of Microsoft by Tracer.AI, alleging that Luanti infringes Minecraft’s copyright. The Luanti app does not contain any proprietary code or assets, from Minecraft or otherwise.
We received a similar notice from the same company in 2023 and successfully appealed against it. This company also filed a similar notice this year against an indie game with similar voxel art style by the name of Allumeria.
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What is Luanti?
Luanti is a voxel game-creation platform where anyone can make, share, discover, and play blocky games. It does not ship with any games or game assets by default. Instead, players can browse a catalog of games created by the community, or simply join multiplayer servers.
We are a non-profit project developed by a community of passionate individuals expressing their creativity. Luanti is open source, which means anyone can view the source code, modify it, learn from it, redistribute it, and even sell games made with it on platforms like Steam.
While Luanti is popular as an open-source alternative to Minecraft (as its roots are in blocky sandbox games), it also lowers barriers to bringing creative ideas to life. The freedom and customization Luanti affords has made it an excellent tool in education, finding its way into many schools across Europe.
What is the DMCA notice?
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is United States law which lays out a notice-and-takedown process which platforms like Google Play follow to avoid liability for damages resulting from copyright-infringing packages which they distribute. These platforms are not responsible for the actions of their users, but they are responsible for taking corrective action when user-generated content is reported.
The DMCA notice we received through Google claims that:
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