Lifeformed, one of the composers of Tunic, shared that a false copyright claim has caused the removal of their soundtracks from a number of streaming services.
“Recently I received a threat on [Facebook] Messenger from a random person, saying they would take down my music. They made a simple DMCA claim and now everything’s being removed from all streaming services,” explained Lifeformed (also known as Terence Lee) in a post to X.
The affected soundtracks and albums are ‘Fastfall’, Tunic, ‘Umbra’ and ‘Undiscovery’, though these are still available on Bandcamp at the moment. Lifeformed said that they were dismayed that it was so simple for this person to ask streaming services like Apple Music to remove one of their sources of revenue.
“[Apple Music] just said the only thing I can do is take legal action against the scammer, from which they’ve only provided me their throwaway email address,” stated the composer.
While a counter-claim has been submitted to Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube Music, Lifeformed informed their fans that there was a “new threat” to remove the rest of their music. It’s not known whether or not this is the same individual from the first false copyright claim.
Lifeformed co-composed the soundtrack to Tunic with their wife Janice Kwan, and the aural accompaniments to the action-adventure game were a highlight of the highly rated 2022 title.
“We talk a lot about how the visuals influence the sound of music during development, but I think the opposite is also true, too,” said level designer Eric Billingsley in a deep dive into the game’s soundtrack with NME.
“If I was trying to define look and feel in a new area, a work-in-progress track would come through from Terence or Janice and I would put that on as I was working and it would help me understand how this area should look, how it should feel,” they elaborated.
In other gaming news, Epic Games’ chief creative officer departed the company after seven years steering the storyline of one of the biggest games in the world.