The Day Before’s trademark dispute issues are still ongoing, with YouTube removing the recent 10-minute gameplay video uploaded by developer Fntastic due to a copyright claim. Fntastic vows to “fight” to resolve the issue, revealing that the copyright claims are coming from the South Korean developer of calendar app “TheDayBefore.”
- Related Reading: The Day Before Gameplay Trailer Side by Side Comparison Shows Similarities to a Lot of Other Games
#thedaybefore pic.twitter.com/2q98hE1i9f
— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) February 12, 2023
The Day Before’s trademark dispute issues began when the game’s Steam page was taken down in January, on the behest of a Lee Sun-Jae from South Korea. Lee filed his US trademark application in 2021 for his phone calendar app “TheDayBefore,” nearly six months after the announcement of the game. Fntastic claims that it was not informed of the trademark application until January 19 this year, and subsequently filed its own application for the name on the same day.
The developer also delayed the game’s launch from March 1 this year to November 10, and stated that it would postpone the release of a “gameplay extravaganza” on YouTube from January to February 2. While the video did release on time, YouTube has now taken it down due to a copyright claim from TheDayBefore.
Fntastic’s statement on the matter reads:
First Steam and then YouTube removed some of The Day Before videos from our channel due to a trademark dispute.
3 facts:
- The so-called “owner of the rights to the title is the creator of the calendar app, which has nothing to do with the games category.
- After we announced the game in 2021, he also wanted to take over the title and filed for trademarks ahead of us.
- He ambiguously offers to contact him to discuss something, but what?
We’ll fight. Power is in the truth.
FNTASTIC
Though the video and the game’s Steam page have both been taken down, Fntastic’s YouTube channel and the game’s website remain accessible.
While the trademark dispute remains unresolved, The Day Before is still set to go live on November 10, 2023 on PC through Steam. Stay tuned here at MP1st for further developments in the situation.