Star Control: Origins restored to GOG after DMCA block

Stardock's latest release has now been fully restored to both GOG and Steam after its launch was blocked by a DMCA takedown notice.

The notice was issued by former Star Control developers Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III as part of an ongoing legal dispute with Stardock and prompted the two prominent PC games marketplaces to remove Origins from their stores.

Stardock has already spoken out against this move, referring to it as DMCA abuse, and Valve sided with the publisher earlier this month by making Star Control: Origins available to its customers.

Now a blog post from Stardock confirms GOG has done the same, even claiming the decision has saved jobs.

"Thanks to the timely review of the situation by our partners at GOG and Valve, and taking the exceptional step in placing our game back fro sale, despite ongoing litigation, we have been able to avoid having to lay off employees assigned to the project," the company wrote.

"We are hopeful that this malicious use of the DMCA process will make consumers aware of just how out-of-hand the state of the DMCA has become. Anyone with an interest in digital goods and services owes it to themselves to increase their awareness of how wide-spread DMCA abuse has gotten and spread the word on it."

The legal dispute between Stardock, Ford and Reiche stems from disagreements over Star Control's ownership. Stardock acquired the trademark rights to the series from Atari in 2013, along with copyrights for Star Control 3.

However, Ford and Reiche claim they own elements of the series as well, having designed the original two games, and argued that Origins is too similar to their previous works (and dissimilar to the Star Control 3 that Stardock acquired).