Luanti removed from Google Play due to baseless AI copyright notice

[Luanti]

https://blog.luanti.org/2026/08/27/luan ... tracer-ai/

[TumeniNodes]

AI is a scourge released upon humanity.
It is already being grossly, and dangerously misused and especially mistrusted by governing bodies and malicious parties throughout the world.
Oddly enough, the variety most used (chatGPT), is also the most unreliable regarding factual / truthful information.
AI has already dominated platforms like YouTube, and has created an extremely annoying, irritating, and frustrating experience for many.
It is already being heavily trusted by the medical industry to take notes during your visits with your DR (where i have already caught countless mistakes in the notes produced from ai)
And, as we see here, it is being used in moderating situations and legal matters, ..and it is wreaking havoc everywhere it is deployed / put into operation.
But the answer is the same from every business doing this.. "whoops, sorry.. we can't be held responsible, ..it's ai.." and this seems ot be enough to protect them from legal actions to hold them responsible if something goes very wrong.
Personally, as a grumpy old fart, ..I don't like any of it. Of course I don't like much of what is going on these days, because everything is a mess, ..which is why I love Luanti / (and using MTG) so much, because it is a wonderful way to get away from the #hitshow around me, ..and now ai wants to destroy that.. (not that I use the Android version) but it won't be long before AI is deeply embedded into everything, ..literally, and destroy it..

[ArceusI]

AI is a scourge released upon humanity.
It is already being grossly, and dangerously misused and especially mistrusted by governing bodies and malicious parties throughout the world.
Oddly enough, the variety most used (chatGPT), is also the most unreliable regarding factual / truthful information.
AI has already dominated platforms like YouTube, and has created an extremely annoying, irritating, and frustrating experience for many.
It is already being heavily trusted by the medical industry to take notes during your visits with your DR (where i have already caught countless mistakes in the notes produced from ai)
And, as we see here, it is being used in moderating situations and legal matters, ..and it is wreaking havoc everywhere it is deployed / put into operation.
But the answer is the same from every business doing this.. "whoops, sorry.. we can't be held responsible, ..it's ai.." and this seems ot be enough to protect them from legal actions to hold them responsible if something goes very wrong.
Personally, as a grumpy old fart, ..I don't like any of it. Of course I don't like much of what is going on these days, because everything is a mess, ..which is why I love Luanti / (and using MTG) so much, because it is a wonderful way to get away from the #hitshow around me, ..and now ai wants to destroy that.. (not that I use the Android version) but it won't be long before AI is deeply embedded into everything, ..literally, and destroy it..

Well now Luanti will be banned from the Android Developer Verification system...
This is actually very concerning too, because Google is already beginning to seriously clamp down on ADB, by trying to remove features that would bypass Google's very strict systems, particularly on Android 16 or newer.

[Nininik]

Profound mental stupidity. Again with Ai.
When will they learn 😔

[Blockhead]

The team reports no specific claims of infringing assets in the takedown notice. A good faith system would find infringing assets automatically and give a list to the developer for rectification. This system is none of that, it's just a chilling effect that's allowed way too free of a reign on the internet. Artificial stupidity at its finest!

[ArceusI]

The team reports no specific claims of infringing assets in the takedown notice. A good faith system would find infringing assets automatically and give a list to the developer for rectification. This system is none of that, it's just a chilling effect that's allowed way too free of a reign on the internet. Artificial stupidity at its finest!

Guess we should raid Google as payback? Or is there a way to somehow teach Google a stern lesson?

[TenPlus1]

Another good reason to avoid ai being installed on anything by default... A handy tool at best but should always be under human supervision to stop mistakes like this from happening.

@Arceusl - As for google, install uBlock Origin add-on to block adverts from all their sites and GrapheneOs is a good mobile Os alternative to stop them getting your data :)

[ArceusI]

@Arceusl - As for google, install uBlock Origin add-on to block adverts from all their sites and GrapheneOs is a good mobile Os alternative to stop them getting your data :)

Well, I did disable Google Play Services, significantly hindering their data collection, but it also protects my devices from Google's overreach, so I'm practically immune to the Android Developer Verification system, so now updating is dangerous for Luanti. Plus I have BlockAds, a FOSS app that goes above & beyond what uBlock Origin does, and it affects all Android apps, barring a couple weird exceptions like HappyMod.

[Hybrid Dog]

There is a Y Hacker News page about this, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49475079

[Wuzzy]

Quick reminder to Android users that you can always download Luanti from F-Droid. You don’t have to wait. :-)

----

Anyway.

Thank you for this blogpost, it is very well-written. I especially like how you even listed all the textures in Luanti to SHUT DOWN the whole "copyright" argument to begin with.

And yeah, (almost) everything about this sucks. Copyright sucks, the DMCA sucks, bullshit "AI" usage sucks, Google sucks, Microsoft sucks, Tracer.AI sucks, lol.
The only thing that does not suck is Luanti. Luanti did everything right yet was still punished for nothing.

This raises the question on whether something like this might happen to Luanti on GitHub eventually. Like, if DMCA can be abused to bully free software on Google Play, why couldn't it be also abused to bully free software on GitHub? This is one of the reasons why I’ve been advocating to ditch GitHub.

[ArceusI]

Anyway.

Thank you for this blogpost, it is very well-written. I especially like how you even listed all the textures in Luanti to SHUT DOWN the whole "copyright" argument to begin with.

And yeah, (almost) everything about this sucks. Copyright sucks, the DMCA sucks, bullshit "AI" usage sucks, Google sucks, Microsoft sucks, Tracer.AI sucks, lol.
The only thing that does not suck is Luanti. Luanti did everything right yet was still punished for nothing.

This raises the question on whether something like this might happen to Luanti on GitHub eventually. Like, if DMCA can be abused to bully free software on Google Play, why couldn't it be also abused to bully free software on GitHub? This is one of the reasons why I’ve been advocating to ditch GitHub.

GitHub is Microsoft after all. Codeberg is a suitable place at the moment. Some Luanti mods are already on that service as is. But still, Age Verification is already a more serious concern now, as games are beginning to get locked behind ID Age Verification & if it gets out of hand it will be impossible to play Luanti at all unless you verify your age via ID on the device, do Luanti itself won't have Age Verification, but devices will, and they'll block execution of programs unless you verify your age, a stupid system that I think should be abandoned. Forget the children, EVERYBODY is in danger, not from predators, but from hackers, corporations & governments due to the ID Age Verification systems that shouldn't even exist. I think we really need to pressure governments into surrendering to the people who don't want Age Verification.

[Melkor]

Funny that GamingOnLinux, what usually echoes news on minecraft and games on voxels (like Luanti) did not say a word about the recent events related with this engine...

[rubenwardy]

Yeah I am disappointed that no media outlets have picked it up, especially given how many covered the Allumeria instance

GamingOnLinux did boost our mastodon post. My theory is they did not cover it on their website because it was the Play Store and thus Android. But the reason it's the play store is because that's our only mainstream store, would have happened on steam if we had it

[Linuxdirk]

I am not surprised at all. Most mainstream news sites are in favor of Minecraft. They actively and intentionally ignore everything that is against it or Microsoft.

[Hybrid Dog]

Quick reminder to Android users that you can always download Luanti from F-Droid. You don’t have to wait. :-)

There's also the unofficial web version at https://minetest.dustlabs.io/ but I think players need to connect mouse and keyboard via e.g. USB-C to their phone. https://github.com/paradust7/luanti-wasm/issues/25

[Melkor]

Here is a review of the DMCA abuse notice form microslop by The Linux Experiment on youtube

https://youtu.be/fmDvykGJqhs?t=1231

[iisu]

I never thought this day would come, because we're way too small and irrelevant for Microsoft to care. For all I can tell, this is just another AI mishap. No, we're not being "intimidated and monopolized" by Microsoft, as the article suggests. I don't think Microsoft is even aware of this.
Having said that, it's amazing how well prepared we are for this exact scenario, according to the article. "We're just a game engine and a platform for community content", "we don't ship with any copyrighted assets, in fact here's the list of all the assets we ship with", "we no longer even ship with MTG or devtest", "MTG and devtest don't use any copyrighted assets either", and "if third party content infringes on your copyright you can submit a DMCA notice to ContentDB". I wasn't even aware of all of these, and didn't connect the dots, but this is as solid of a defense as it gets. gj devs! (Although I'll always say that the removal of Nyan cats from MTG was unbased and cringe.)
Yeah, stuff like this will happen and the only thing we can do is hope a human would review the claims and notice the absurdity of the situation.

Since the copyright claim is against an old version of Minecraft, I wonder how much of it is based on the similarity between MTG and ancient versions of MC. I don't think we're even similar to Minecraft anymore, because of how much MC has changed over the years. We did share some similarity in the past and we can't distance ourselves any further from this fact without deleting content. We're already just an engine, and don't ship with MTG by default.

PS. I wonder if this second takedown from the same company was a failure to recognize us as a project that has succesfully counter-noticed in the past, due to our recent name change. Minetest has been taken down and appealed that, Luanti has not. If that's the case, we're probably safe, at least from this particular AI company.