Considering that this is the first real workday after the holidays in Poland afaik, it could probably be gone in about 2 hours.

The judge covered this point in the decision about the injuction, saying "self inflicted harm can not be considered irreparable". And there is significant case law on this point. In other words, if you know something is illegal or probably illegal, and do it anyway, and then argue later that irreparable harm would be caused by not granting an injunction, it's your own fault that the irreparable harm occurs.

In fact, the judge covered this issue six ways and sideways explaining how preliminary injunctions are "extraordinary remedies" that require a "clear showing" to be successful. The only real way one is going to get a preliminary injunction is if the case is rather frivolous. This case clearly isn't.

It fails because purely economic losses are not irreparable harm as a damage award can compensate for it.

It fails because there is no guarantee under the DMCA that storefronts will choose to remove the material (they are not required to - doesn't matter that most do - they have a choice). If they don't remove it, there are no damages.

It fails because the injunction asked for (preventing all DMCAs) could allow Stardock to release clearly infringing material without recourse. Among other reasons

Basically, it's not even bad arguments from Stardock. There was no way Stardock was going to get such an injunction.

I equate this to what Alex Mauer did. An attempt to get people mad at Stardock and side with F&P in this.

The base game is now gone from GoG. The expansion packs and DLCs still seem to be around for now at least.

Official announcement

On an ethical level, it's even easier to defend the DMCA approach than on a legal level. This case is exceptional in how brazen it is. Wardell went out of his way to add in infringing content after the relationship soured abruptly - the Arilou and Chenjesu DLC packs, for example, weren't even being discussed when Wardell still thought he might get to work closely with F&P. The insulting "settlement" offer from Stardock demanding that F&P hand over all IP from all Star Control games, and refrain from making a game even in the same genre for half a decade, wasn't put out until Brad got snubbed.

From an ethical standpoint, this is as easy as it gets. When a company with reasonable cause to believe it does not have clear legal basis for incorporating existing material into its product does so anyway, advertising the product as being highly similar to the products it takes that potentially infringing material from, then notifying 3rd party retail storefronts that they may be hosting infringing content is exactly the right way to go. Stardock can still sell their game, and the DMCA action (or lack thereof) will have no bearing on the facts of the case. But it does provide an opportunity to stop a willful and blatant instigator from profiting from their aggressiveness.

If this had been even close to a balanced and proportionate set of actions and responses from both sides, the ethical stance might be harder to defend, but not here. You run around throwing dirt and yelling, "I'm not touching you!" long enough and eventually a grown up is going to tell you to sit down and shut up. In this case, by permitting the other kid to tell on you so the grownups can decide if they need to take away your toys.

Here's the problem. This DMCA did not target those DLCs. They targeted the game itself. You seem to be justifying it the same way Fred and Paul Crackpot are. Brad said bad things to us, so we are ethically entitled to punish him for it. All this while in the midst of litigation.

To me, the proper course would have been to petition the court for an injunction. SInce they currently have a case before the court this seems proper. Going around the court to strike the game from sale using a knowingly flawed DMCA process seems rather unethical when you have proper recourse at hand.

But I'm sure what's "brazen" is in the eye of the beholder. I thought Fred and Paul were brazen when days after Origin was announced they tried to upstage it by advertising their own "true successor" that hadn't even entered development. On top of that, they used the Trademark owned by Stardock as well as the promotional box art, again owned by Stardock. It was a dick move. But of course the Fred and Paul apologists will never acknowledge that they can do any wrong...

We can also talk about the way Fred and Paul are attempting to bring the case to the public. You sure seem upset by what Stardock counter-offered, yet why should we the public be any part of that in the first place. Oh right, because F&P would rather smear Stardock to the public than handle it in court. Another dick move.

Personally, what F&P did to sabotage the Star Control: Origins launch is horrible to me. There is no telling how much they cost Stardock by attempting to upstage them. Where's your evaluation of those ethics?

I see you've gone into full WHARRGARBL mode, once more. Your points, then:

The DMCA targets the game SC:O, which contains many disparate elements from copyrighted work not licensed to the creator/distributor of SC:O. The copyright violations are in the game itself. The example I gave of the DLCs was speaking to the brazenness of the copyright violations, which in turn justified the ethical stance for the DMCA notice. Which is what you asked about in the first place.

An injunction was indeed applied for. It was applied for by Stardock, and was refused by the judge. If Stardock had applied for a more specific injunction it may have been granted, but because the injunction sought was amateurish in its design, Stardock has hobbled itself from defending its own product. This is not "going around the court" as you put it - it is in fact proceeding with the explicit permission of the court.

Perhaps you only hear about things from media outlets and Twitter, but I know about the settlement offers because they're included in the actual court filings, which you could see in their entirety on, for example, courtlistener.

There was no sabotage of the SC:O launch. Though it would have legally permitted, there were no DMCA notices filed against SC:O on or about launch day. In fact, the entire prime sale window went by before the court ruled on the validity of the requested injunction against the DMCA notice. Are you naive enough to believe that was a coincidence?

sigh, lets not personally attack each other. Leave the matter up to the courts where all is revealed.

Any intelligent person would realise that filing a DMCA claim is making a legal claim outside this existing court case. Hence, it is clearly "going around the court". What does that say about you?

The fact that you can't understand how upstaging Stardock's launch announcement with their own is an attempt to sabotage speaks volumes about your integrity. The fact you cannot see how using SC2 promotional materials and promoting it as a "true" sequel to Star Control, apparently unlike Stardock's, would be an attempt to dilute the Trademark says a lot about your bias...

F&P lobbed the first volleys. F&P publicized those settlement claims well before filing them, yet here you are disingenuously acting as if they didn't do that.

Sorry, you seem to be particularly clueless!

Why is an american legal procedure affecting european users or is GoG being overly careful?

The DMCA is the U.S. copyright laws passed in 1998 to be in compliance with the WCT treaty of 1996.
WIPO - The World Intellectual Property Organization (a division of the U.N.) adopted this treaty in 1996. It covers copyrights throughout all 191 signed member states. The DMCA was the U.S. law passed to be in compliance with this treaty. Presumably each of the other 191 countries enacted similar laws.

In short, on some level this is enacted through the U.N. and the WCT treaty. Hence, that is why it also affects Europe.

P.S. as an aside to all the talk about Stardock's negotiation tactics, I'm sure the judge was so superbly happy with Fred and Paul when on March 29, 2018 the judge issued the following order:

"IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that all parties and counsel are ORDERED to keep all past,
present and future settlement negotiations CONFIDENTIAL. All such negotiations, including all
offers and demands, shall not be disclosed to anyone other than to the parties without further order
of the Court."

I wonder why he thought that was necessary? But Fred and Paul did nothing wrong...yeah right...