Activison, the creators behind the Call of Duty franchise are sending out notices to certain creators within Fortnite’s ecosystem. According to reports, they are being contacted to remove all Call of Duty-inspired Creative 2.0 maps.
It would seem that Creative 2.0 maps, such as the popular First-Person Mode Rust and Zombies, will have to be taken down (if not removed already). Others that have been inspired or take direct inspiration from Call of Duty will likely be removed as well.
While this may seem unfair, Epic Games did warn creators about the possibility of running into copyright infringement. Given that the assets can now be imported into Unreal Editor for Fortnite, it laid the foundation for intellectual property disputes and violations of DMCA guidelines.
Why does Activision want to remove all Call of Duty inspired Creative 2.0 maps in Fortnite?
While it may seem rather silly on the surface, the developers/publishers, Activision, have every right to ask creators to ‘take down’ and/or ‘delete’ Creative 2.0 maps that draw direct inspiration from Call of Duty maps.
In the past, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but with creators now being able to monetize their maps, a lot of rules and regulations have come into play. Since the maps are popular due to the COD franchise, the creators would be directly and/or indirectly earning from their popularity.
That being said, if the said maps are not removed, a legal notice will likely follow. Furthermore, with Epic Games laying out strict guidelines regarding such Creative 2.0 maps, creators ‘may’ potentially get their accounts permanently banned. This double threat will make things rather unpleasant for future endeavors in-game.
Is there a way to work around this copyright infringement?
While some users on the Twitter post have some clever/creative suggestions to bypass copyright infringement, they are not likely to work. Since copyright infringement is a very broad term in the truest sense, even having the name of a map from Call of Duty may result in a warning.
That said, given that creators such as MistJawaYT have agreed to delete all Creative 2.0 maps that take inspiration from Call of Duty, it’s plain to see that no one is willing to take a risk. It is rather heartbreaking, considering how many hours it took to create these maps, but there’s nothing that can be done about it.
Creators cannot ask Epic Games to intervene either as they had already warned them shortly after Unreal Editor for Fortnite went live. As alluring as it may seem, by the looks of things thus far, not recreating maps from other popular online video games is probably the safest bet.
Following these events, creators of any and all Creative 2.0 maps that take inspiration from popular titles (Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive) will likely take down their creations as a preemptive measure.
While the developers/publishers of the aforementioned games may make an exception to this rule, it’s better to stay safe than sorry and avoid testing the waters. It looks like players will have to stick to creating original content in Fortnite Creative 2.0.