This week, the Foundation for the History of Video Games announced a very special, very special victory. The cookie hustlean extremely rare and surreal Japanese PC game from the 90s, has been released. If you’ve never heard of it The cookie hustlethere is a good reason. For years, someone has been committed to erasing every fragment of Hustleonline via copyright claims, although he has no ownership over the game.
Since 2022, an individual known as Brandon White, under the company Graceware, has unleashed a slew of copyright claims on any online material related to the game. The cookie hustle. Many noticed for the first time that these complaints led to the disappearance of several positions from the Cult ephemeraist YouTuber ClassicsOfGameleaving marks in their elegant numbered catalog. As it turned out, the strikes extended well beyond YouTube, with DMCA claims circulating against Twitch streams, fan art, ROM sites, and even Discord posts. Whoever Brandon White was, they looked less like someone protecting intellectual property and more like someone trying to erase it from existence.
This strange behavior has arrived at the very doorstep of the Video Game History Foundation. Although rare, a physical copy of the game was donated to the Foundation. The page they created to display this precious acquisition? This was also hit by a copyright strike, drilling the web portal host of their archive.
“While Graceware’s actions against us were incredibly disruptive, we saw this as an opportunity to get to the bottom of what was happening. » writes Phil Salvadordirector of the VGHF library.
The lengthy article goes on to explain how the VGHF went on the offensive, revealing the network of unscrupulous copyright companies and services that White used to launch this campaign. White had deployed a sort of smokescreen to use the resources of the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie), although he had no proof of ownership of The cookie hustle and even misspelling his own business as Gracewear in the Ukie membership.
Even though White used automated copyright services like Web Capio to attack Hustlethe VGHF knew that a confrontation with Ukie would cut him in the process. When the archive and entry for The cookie hustle reappeared, Ukie couldn’t get the VGHF host to abandon them a second time, so Ukie’s Mumith Ali contacted the Foundation directly. This was an opportunity to bluff White, with the Foundation asking Ali to contact Graceware to provide proof that they had any rights to the creation of the original game. They couldn’t.
The VGHF’s closing of this chapter resolved a lot of the “hows” but not a lot of the “whys.” The creator of The cookie hustle is still unknown, which makes it an orphan (but not in the public domain). We know enough about Brandon White to say that they are not the creator of The cookie hustlebut we still don’t understand why anyone would put so much energy into erasing it.
For now, Cookie is free. YouTube account ClassicsOfGame triumphantly reposted the missing videos. The cookie can be displayed, distributed and enjoyed. Cookie is free to dance. Dance and be happy, Cookie.