Microsoft and Epic fire DMCA takedowns at AI-built game ports

Microsoft and Epic Games have fired DMCA takedown notices at AI-assisted browser ports of their own games, removing "vibe-coded" recreations of Fortnite, Minecraft, Call of Duty and Halo during October while both companies keep using generative AI in their own development, according to a Kotaku report.

Kotaku reported on October 26 and updated the story on October 27 that Epic Games filed a DMCA notice against a browser-based Fortnite recreation on October 10, and that Microsoft issued multiple notices over browser versions of Minecraft, Call of Duty and Halo in the preceding month. Kotaku said it counted at least six Call of Duty web ports removed through DMCA notices over that period. Gadget Review, which covered the same report, noted that the number and the current status of the individual notices have not been independently verified.

The takedowns are documented. A GitHub copyright log entry dated October 12, 2026 records a notice submitted on behalf of Microsoft Corporation by Tracer, a brand-protection firm acting for the company. The notice states that Microsoft is "the exclusive owner of all rights, title, and interest in and to Minecraft," and lists the game's source and binary code, textures, audio and gameplay systems among the protected works.

Both companies are heavy users of the technology they are now enforcing against. Kotaku pointed to Epic Games' own AI-built launcher, which launched on October 14, and to Microsoft's Copilot. Activision, a Microsoft subsidiary, used AI to generate in-game artwork for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, per Kotaku. Kotaku noted that Microsoft has committed $80 billion a year to building AI data centers, and that on October 13 Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said the company remains committed to being responsible stewards of intellectual property.

Futurism, Cybernews, Tech Times and Gadget Review all covered the takedowns, each crediting Kotaku's October 26 report. Futurism described the pattern as a double standard across the AI industry. Cybernews raised the question of independent studios, which it said often cannot afford to defend their games.

Kotaku's account also surfaces internal Microsoft language from the separate New York Times copyright case against Microsoft and OpenAI. Brent Hecht, Microsoft's director of applied science, wrote in material obtained during discovery that "Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models 'hoovering up' all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions," adding, "Almost no one intended for content they created to be used in this fashion, nor are they compensated for its use." Nieman Lab and The Verge reported the same line from the unredacted September filing. Nieman Lab reported that a Microsoft spokesperson said Hecht's comments "reflect one employee's individual perspective, are not a legal analysis, and do not represent the company's views," and The Verge noted a Microsoft filing framed Hecht as a contrarian on the payroll. The comments come from internal documents, not from the browser-port dispute.

Epic's exposure is direct. Kotaku, citing an October 12 Bloomberg report, said Epic's upcoming "AI first" Marvel and Disney game will be developed using Anthropic's Claude. Kotaku also noted that Epic's terms of service bar users from training a generative AI program on code or content extracted from its licensed products. Anthropic agreed in September 2025 to pay $1.5 billion for training on data obtained from a file-sharing site, and had to delete the data but not the models trained on it, per Kotaku.

The wave has reached independent developers. Kotaku reported that takedown notices for open-sourced versions of Mega Crit's Slay the Spire 2, Maddy Makes Games' Celeste and Ludeon Studios' RimWorld appeared in GitHub's DMCA logs over the preceding four weeks. Those originals contain no generative AI content, Kotaku noted, and the projects were open-sourced against their developers' wishes. Kotaku did not attribute those notices to Microsoft or Epic.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney responded on October 27 in a post on X, quoted in full by Cybernews. He wrote that the criticism "conflates a number of different things," and divided it into parts: Epic does not allow use of Fortnite intellectual property without permission or compensation; Epic currently restricts AI training on outputs of Unreal Engine and MetaHuman, a restriction he said the company is working to remove from its EULA terms; and, citing the Anthropic ruling, he said the court found the training itself was fair use even though Anthropic was liable for infringing when it downloaded pirated content. Kotaku reported that it had reached out to Sweeney through Epic's communications team for further comment.

For creators who train or fine-tune models on other people's work, the dispute leaves the ground unsettled. Compliance turns on terms that differ by tool and can change: Sweeney said Epic is working to remove its own restriction on AI training, which would loosen one constraint even as the takedowns tighten another. Whether the browser-port enforcement extends to training data or fine-tunes, rather than to finished ports, remains untested in the notices the outlets describe. Anyone building on another company's engine output or assets should treat the current terms as the reference point, not announced ones.

What happens next: Sweeney said Epic is working to remove the AI-training restriction from its EULA terms, and GitHub's public copyright log continues to record new notices.