DRAFT FOR LAWYER REVIEW — NOT LEGAL ADVICE. This document has not been approved by a lawyer and does not by itself protect the operator or anyone else.

Copyright and Trademark Complaints

This draft describes how RIFTYARD intends to receive and handle complaints that content on the platform infringes copyright, a trade mark or another intellectual property right. Text marked [LEGAL REVIEW] must be confirmed by the operator's lawyer.

1. Important limits of this document

• The operator is [OPERATOR LEGAL ENTITY NOT CONFIGURED], [OPERATOR ADDRESS NOT CONFIGURED], and is intended to be based in Australia.
• No designated agent has been registered with the United States Copyright Office. This document is not a statement that the operator qualifies for protection under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
• No claim is made that the operator qualifies for any safe harbour under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Eligibility under Australian law is limited to particular kinds of service provider and must be assessed by counsel.
• The Australian and United States positions are different and must be assessed separately. A process modelled on one does not automatically satisfy the other.
• This process is offered because acting on credible complaints is the right thing to do. Operating it does not by itself create any legal immunity.
• Content that the operator itself generates, curates, features or promotes (for example seed games and editorial picks) may be treated differently by the law from content merely hosted for users. [LEGAL REVIEW] Separate analysis required.

All time periods in this document are [CONFIGURABLE — TO BE SET PER JURISDICTION ON LEGAL ADVICE]. None has been set.

2. How to make a complaint

Send your complaint through the complaint form on the site, or to [COPYRIGHT CONTACT NOT CONFIGURED]. You do not need a RIFTYARD account.

Please include:

1. Who you are: your name, email address and, if applicable, your organisation.
2. Your authority: a statement that you own the right concerned or are authorised to act for the owner.
3. The work or mark: a description of the copyright work, registered or unregistered trade mark, or other right you say is infringed. Include registration details or links where you have them.
4. The content complained about: the RIFTYARD game page address, or enough information for us to find it, and what part of it you say infringes.
5. Type of complaint: copyright, trade mark, or other rights.
6. Jurisdiction: the country whose law you rely on, if you are relying on a particular one.
7. A good-faith statement: that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised by the owner, its agent or the law.
8. An accuracy statement: that the information in your complaint is accurate.
9. Your signature: a typed full name is accepted as an electronic signature.
10. Evidence: anything that helps us compare the works.

Knowingly false or misleading complaints may have legal consequences for the person making them. [LEGAL REVIEW] Wording of this warning for each jurisdiction.

Ordinary users who simply notice something that looks copied can also use the Report action on a game page; staff will route it appropriately.

3. What we do with a complaint

Step 1 — Intake

The complaint is logged with a status of received and assigned to a reviewer. If something essential is missing we ask for it (needs info). Every step is recorded in a restricted audit trail.

Step 2 — Review

A person reviews the complaint and the content (under review). Reviewers assess whether the complaint is complete and credible on its face. They are not a court and do not finally decide whether infringement has occurred. Trade mark and other non-copyright complaints often turn on context, such as whether a name is used descriptively or in parody, and may take longer.

Step 3 — Action or rejection

If the complaint is accepted (actioned), the affected version is suspended. Removal is designed to take effect in these places:

• Public listings: the game leaves discovery, search, profiles and share pages.
• Launch authorisation: no new launch tokens are issued for that version, so it cannot be started through the platform.
• Active rooms: new admissions stop; active sessions are terminated where policy requires.
• Caches: copies in server and CDN caches under the operator's control are purged.
• Dependent content: remixes descended from the removed version are identified and queued for review (see section 6).

What removal cannot do: it cannot erase copies of game data already downloaded to a player's device, screenshots people have taken, or copies held elsewhere on the internet. We do not claim otherwise.

If the complaint is incomplete, plainly unfounded or abusive, it is rejected and the complainant is told why.

Step 4 — Notifying the creator

The creator is notified that their version has been removed, the nature of the complaint and the work or mark relied on, and how to respond. [LEGAL REVIEW] How much of the complainant's identity and contact information is passed to the creator, and on what legal basis, for each jurisdiction.

Step 5 — Counter-notice or appeal

A creator who believes the removal was a mistake, or that they have the right to use the material, can respond. There are two routes:

• Counter-notice (for rights complaints): a statement explaining why the removal was mistaken, a signature, and — where the applicable regime requires it — a consent to the jurisdiction of a specified court. A counter-notice is recorded as received, then forwarded to the complainant, and is then accepted or rejected.
• Appeal (for any moderation decision): a statement reviewed by staff, with an outcome of upheld or overturned.

If a counter-notice is accepted and nothing further prevents it, the content may be restored. The period after which content may be restored, and what the complainant must do to prevent that, is [CONFIGURABLE — TO BE SET PER JURISDICTION ON LEGAL ADVICE].

[LEGAL REVIEW] The counter-notice mechanism in this draft is modelled loosely on the United States approach because the data model supports it. Whether it is appropriate, required or sufficient under Australian law, and the exact required contents of notices and counter-notices in each jurisdiction, must be advised.

Step 6 — Closing

The complaint is closed with a record of the outcome.

4. Timelines

5. Repeat infringers

When a complaint is actioned, a strike may be recorded against the creator's account, linked to the complaint. A strike is withdrawn if the complaint is withdrawn, a counter-notice is accepted or an appeal succeeds. Accounts with repeated, substantiated strikes lose publishing privileges and, in appropriate circumstances, are terminated.

The number of strikes and the period over which they count are [CONFIGURABLE — TO BE SET PER JURISDICTION ON LEGAL ADVICE].

6. Remixes of removed content

RIFTYARD records the ancestry of every remix. When a version is removed for infringement:

• every project descended from it is identified from the lineage records;
• each descendant is reviewed on its own facts. We do not automatically assume that every descendant infringes. A remix may have removed or replaced the material complained about, or may reproduce it in full;
• a descendant that does contain the material is removed through the same process, with its own notification and its own right of response;
• the complainant may be asked whether the complaint is intended to extend to identified descendants.

[LEGAL REVIEW] Whether descendants should be suspended provisionally while under review, and the operator's exposure during that period.

7. Evidence and records

Complaints, evidence, counter-notices, decisions and staff actions are stored in a restricted area accessible only to authorised staff, and kept until the retention date set for the record. Removed versions are retained in restricted form, not deleted, while a complaint, counter-notice, appeal or legal hold is open. See the Privacy Policy.

8. What we will not do

• Provide tools for extracting assets from commercial games or bypassing technical protection measures.
• Help anyone evade a takedown or re-host removed content.
• Decide ownership disputes between two parties who both claim a right; those belong in a court or other competent forum.

9. Contact

Rights complaints: [COPYRIGHT CONTACT NOT CONFIGURED] Legal notices: [LEGAL CONTACT NOT CONFIGURED] Postal address: [OPERATOR ADDRESS NOT CONFIGURED]