The Harmony redesigned will continue to be developed and be released at Github. (latest release[github.com]).

I just have a hard time understanding why one would get banned for offering a promising alternative. As far as the "doxing" goes, that can be debated, but i find those measures drastic, as that info was readily available.

What is a promising alternative to you is an existential threat to the company that gets paid for an inferior product.

The ban was given by the developer, not by Steam.

I have taken the issue up with Steam Support, and they explained they would not be lifting the ban because they allow developers "some leeway" to implement their own policies as to what is acceptable. That criticism at their own address is unwelcome is quite understandable.

A competent company that has some integrity would take the criticism and fix up their act. Colossal's response demonstrates they are not one of those competent companies with integrity.

So a DMCA is the oldest and easiest trick in the book. It's the modern-day cease and desist letter. The basis of the legislation was to prevent financial harm to license holders and protect copyright holders. Last I knew it was formed during the Napster era to prevent people from downloading music that was copyrighted. I know this because I was served a DMCA back then for an mp3. Where the DMCA applies to this case is unknown to me and another example of the mis-use of the DMCA.

There will be a need to demonstrate how an alternative to a community mod would prevent future revenues and profits by CO for this DMCA to be relevant. But for that to happen, CO would need to prove how the original Harmony mod (technically a community contribution and not provided by CO) has contributed to future revenues of CO.

A potential conflict of interest arises here because the author of the original mod is now an employee of CO, and I'm guessing was not employed by CO when Harmony was released years ago. Last I knew, the Steam Community can not be used for financial gain, which is why the "DONATE to Patreon" button exists on many mods -- because paying for downloading a mod on the Steam Community would be against their Acceptable Use Policy.

It's common in the software industry to agree to a non-compete agreement in order to accept a position of employment. It's also common as part of this agreement to a device invention / intellectual property contract whereby all code and software that a software engineer writes while employed is property of the employer.

I think the public advertisement of boformer as a CO employee on their Steam profile was one of many bad-faith moves on their part. To some, this may have been viewed as an endorsement by CO.

I'm still not understanding how a DMCA applies here...the original framework by Andreas Pardeike, the Harmony mod, and Harmony redesigned are provided under the MIT license... it just doesn't add up to me.

33Rev, thank you for your insightful response.

Valve has not yet contacted me or provided a copy of the complaint, so I don't know exactly what the complaint contains or who made it. But, I have some additional clarification in light of your response:

I believe that the need to demonstrate harm, etc, is an issue that would arise when the matter comes before the Courts. As far as Valve is concerned, my understanding is that they need to comply with the statutory provisions, which is to say, they must inform the allegedly infringing party of the complaint and remove the content in dispute in some amount of time, unless they receive a counter-claim. When a counter-claim is served, Valve will have done its job in the eyes of the law and no longer has to take any action, and may restore the content if it was removed. It is important to note that Valve is not required, nor able to make any judgment on the merits of the claim or counter-claim. It's role is to put the parties in contact in an unambiguous way.

The purpose of the counter-claim is to fend against fraudulent complaints, and to absolve the service provider of liability. It contains the counter-claimant's address for process purposes, at which point the two parties in dispute can take the matter up in courts, and Valve itself is no longer involved.

With respect to the potential conflict of interest, Felix Schmidt was already employed by CO when he started work on his Harmony mod, which is what I am guessing the complaint is about:

1. Colossal Order post on Playstation Blog[archive.ph] dated March 25, 2020, talking about Felix Schmidt as an employee at CO
2. Felix Schmidt's initial commit to the Harmony mod project[archive.ph], dated March 30, 2020
3. Felix Schmidt's commit specifically adding MIT license to his source code[archive.ph] dated February 14, 2021
4. My first commit to my Harmony mod[archive.ph], dated March 10, 2021. I use the GNU Public License, which is more restrictive than MIT, without using a meaningful part of Felix's code, though I copied a few paragraphs, for which I gave attribution in the appropriate places in the source.

I think what's left to do about the DMCA is to satisfy Valve by providing them with the counter-claim letter, and then pursue the fraudulent claim in the courts.

EDIT: Fix link #3

Originally posted by 33Rev:

I'm still not understanding how a DMCA applies here...the original framework by Andreas Pardeike, the Harmony mod, and Harmony redesigned are provided under the MIT license... it just doesn't add up to me.

The Harmony Library (MIT) is distinct from the Harmony Mod (whether boformer's - MIT, or mine - GPL). The Mod includes the library or a derivative of the library, but also includes some glue code to make various versions of Andreas' library work together. By design, Harmony Library versions 1.x and 2.x are incompatible and cannot be used simultaneously in the same environment. The glue code bridges the incompatibility gap with some patches to the the older 1.x library, which makes it able to function in the same environment as a 2.x library. The glue code exists in boformer's mod (licensed MIT), along with some other functions which I discarded. Very similar code exists in my mod, and implements the same necessary function.

Now, I used an earlier version of the code base than Feb 14 where the MIT license was added, and thus the MIT license text file is missing from my code base. Admittedly, this was my slip where I didn't cross a t and dot an i. I don't know if this is what the complaint is about, but it will be fixed in the next update. If this is the reason for the complaint, it still leaves the complaint as fraudulent, because after adding this missing file, the resulting compiled version would still be identical to the existing published file, bit for bit.

When I bring the counter-claim and take the party responsible for the fraudulent complaint to Court, I wonder if that party is Felix Schmidt, or Colossal Order, or possibly both, jointly.

In the timeline I showed above, Felix was an employee at CO when he first started work on his Harmony Mod.

The Harmony Mod itself does not serve any other function than to enable the community to modify the vanilla software. The success of the CSL product is largely attributed to the community making such modifications. The Harmony mod augments the ability of the CSL software to be modified, and it should be viewed as part and parcel of the product itself. There is simply no other purpose to it. It seems to me, that although Felix put his name in the MIT license, his mod benefits his employer, and only his employer, and it must be viewed as part of CO's product, and not a modification made by a community member.

As far as I can tell, it is CO, and not (only) Felix Schmidt that bare the liability for the fraudulent DMCA complaint, so Colossal Order is the proper defendant to be named in the lawsuit, possibly jointly with Felix Schmidt.

Quick update.

The Harmony Redesigned mod has been hidden from view, and shows the following notice banner:

Note the reason for removal is "violation of Steam Community & Content Guidelines", and not "Copyright infrigment"

I'm speculating that this is Colossal Order's removal, and not Valve removing it as per DMCA law.

In any case, dear users, you can keep using your copy, I would even suggest making a local copy in case of further CO shenanigans. I'm working tirelessly to resolve this issue.

Please note that if you need to download a copy you can find the latest official release at github release page[github.com], which can be unzipped in a folder under:


Thank you for your continued support and patience.

No way.. i just get an error when trying to access it.

And i just cued Saint-Saëns' danse macabre.. quite the timing.

This is utter bullsh*t.

Yep, it took them 15 days of intense scrutiny and personal attacks to come up with "Steam Community & Content Guidelines violation".

Assuming for a brief second that it's true, how incompetent is CO if it took 15 days to figure that out?

Of course, the fact that they've started the assault on me only after I exposed their shady practices means they are driven by pure hate now, and are willing to pile on the lies on top of each other.

There is no violation, no explanation, they got cold feet after their DMCA attempt, but that was one irreversible step. I hope it turns out that hiring an incompetent developer is far more expensive than they imagined, and you can't fix this problem by throwing more hate and rash decisions at it.

Well that was an entertaining 2 weeks..... anyways -- nothing to see hear folks, move along, move along now.

These things take a little time, the Harmony Redesigned item will be restored.

Valve sent me the complaint at the same time as removing the item (which is just marked "invisible"), a few days after initially putting up the DMCA banner. I expect it will also take them a few days to restore it once they receive my counter-claim, which should be ready very shortly.

I think all the delay is a consequence of how Valve's legal process works, and nothing should be inferred from its glacial speed.

However, having seen the complaint, I can say it is absolutely fraudulent.

Since Felix proved to have shared his code as open source under the MIT license only to turn to copyright infringement claims, he is a disguising individual to me, and it sickens me to have any of his code in my Harmony. and I will expunge every trace of his "open source" code from my repo, because fraudulent or not, his claims do take up some of my time to deal with. Removing all of his code will make his future counter-claims much more straight-forward.

The complaint is not at all about protecting copyright, but about eliminating competition.

The next version of Harmony Redesigned will be released very soon, but through a different distribution channel than CO's workshop, for reasons which should now be obvious.

In case anyone is wondering, I am still subscribed to it, I have not seen a workshop download update (where it could be removed without my consent), and can verify I'm still using it in game. So it still exists.... However I can't view the workshop item, but I can see it in the subscribed mods list. It's a bit of an odd state