TheRetroArcade
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Posts: 1,971
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
The evil is defeated.
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You may not have heard of Cookie's Bustle. That's partly because it's an obscure Japanese point-and-click released by a small studio called Rodik in 1999. It's also because of the efforts of a copyright troll, who kept playthrough videos, screenshots, fan art, and even Discord mentions of Cookie's Bustle offline for years.
Cookie's Bustle has finally been brought to light thanks to the efforts of the Video Game History Foundation, which recently documented its victory in preserving Cookie's Bustle in the face of claims by a company called Graceware. As the VGHF posted on Bluesky, "For years, Graceware has gotten away with abusing the DMCA because they've targeted large platforms that comply quickly with takedowns, or individuals without the resources to push back. Then they fucked with us, a non-profit organization with a special interest and an expert legal team."
First, what is Cookie's Bustle? Well, it's a game about a five-year-old girl who has been transformed into a teddy bear, who travels to a South American island nation with the unlikely name of Bombo World to take part in a sporting competition. It gets weirder from there. Aliens are involved, there's a song in what is allegedly English, and Cookie does jail time.
Let's Play videos of Cookie's Bustle, like this recently restored one from Vinesauce, were regularly taken offline following Graceware's DMCA complaints, with little in the way of pushback. Until, that is, the VGHF obtained a physical CD-ROM of Cookie's Bustle and began adding it to their digital archive, including a three-and-a-half hour longplay video. When they received the inevitable takedown notices—three of them—they pushed back. As the saying goes, if you come for the VGHF, you best not miss.
VGHF library director Phil Salvador's exhaustive article shows that Graceware's claim of owning the Cookie's Bustle copyright—it's technically an "orphan work" because Rodik no longer exists and nobody from the studio has been contactable—is based on registrations for the source code, game concept, and character designs lodged with an organization called Interoco. But as Salvador put it, Interoco is "effectively a digital version of mailing yourself a letter to get it date-stamped by the Post Office, a comparison that INTEROCO explicitly makes on their About Us page."
It's simply an official-looking name ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
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Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
You may not have heard of Cookie's Bustle. That's partly because it's an obscure Japanese point-and-click released by a small studio called Rodik in 1999. It's also because of the efforts of a copyright troll, who kept playthrough videos, screenshots, fan art, and even Discord mentions of Cookie's Bustle offline for years.
Cookie's Bustle has finally been brought to light thanks to the efforts of the Video Game History Foundation, which recently documented its victory in preserving Cookie's Bustle in the face of claims by a company called Graceware. As the VGHF posted on Bluesky, "For years, Graceware has gotten away with abusing the DMCA because they've targeted large platforms that comply quickly with takedowns, or individuals without the resources to push back. Then they fucked with us, a non-profit organization with a special interest and an expert legal team."
First, what is Cookie's Bustle? Well, it's a game about a five-year-old girl who has been transformed into a teddy bear, who travels to a South American island nation with the unlikely name of Bombo World to take part in a sporting competition. It gets weirder from there. Aliens are involved, there's a song in what is allegedly English, and Cookie does jail time.
Let's Play videos of Cookie's Bustle, like this recently restored one from Vinesauce, were regularly taken offline following Graceware's DMCA complaints, with little in the way of pushback. Until, that is, the VGHF obtained a physical CD-ROM of Cookie's Bustle and began adding it to their digital archive, including a three-and-a-half hour longplay video. When they received the inevitable takedown notices—three of them—they pushed back. As the saying goes, if you come for the VGHF, you best not miss.
VGHF library director Phil Salvador's exhaustive article shows that Graceware's claim of owning the Cookie's Bustle copyright—it's technically an "orphan work" because Rodik no longer exists and nobody from the studio has been contactable—is based on registrations for the source code, game concept, and character designs lodged with an organization called Interoco. But as Salvador put it, Interoco is "effectively a digital version of mailing yourself a letter to get it date-stamped by the Post Office, a comparison that INTEROCO explicitly makes on their About Us page."
It's simply an official-looking name ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?