Microsoft/TracerAI withdraws copyright takedown against Luanti

Microsoft, through Tracer AI, has rescinded its DMCA copyright takedown notice against Luanti's Google Play listing, and the open-source voxel game app has been reinstated on the Play Store. The withdrawal indicates Microsoft has dropped the case and does not plan to file a lawsuit, resolving the dispute sooner than the counter-notice period would have allowed. The Luanti team also noted that Microsoft Research uses Luanti as a testbed in Project VEGA and in the paper "Beyond Pixel Histories: World Models with Persistent 3D State," citing its open-source design and Lua API over Minecraft.

Previously, we announced that Microsoft via Tracer AI had filed a DMCA notice against Luanti’s Google Play listing https://blog.luanti.org/2026/08/27/luanti-dmca-tracer-ai/ , alleging that Luanti infringed upon Minecraft’s copyright. The notice has been rescinded and the app has been reinstated on the Play Store. The notice being rescinded means that the app has been reinstated on the Play Store sooner than if we had to wait for the counter-notice period. It also indicates that they have dropped this case and do not plan to file a lawsuit. In a remarkable twist, after the previous post, we discovered that Microsoft actually uses Luanti for research: Project VEGA https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-vega/ - Microsoft Research & XBOX: For the prototypes and demonstrations in this article, our testbed is Luanti, an open-source voxel game platform. Beyond Pixel Histories: World Models with Persistent 3D State https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.03482 - Microsoft Research & University of Edinburgh: We prefer Luanti over Minecraft due to its open-source design and expressive Lua API, which facilitates data collection and experimentation. These projects highlight Luanti’s potential as an open, flexible, and easy-to-use platform that satisfies a wide diversity of use cases and audiences. While we are glad that this situation has been resolved fairly promptly, it still consumed a fair amount of our time to fight it. We would like to thank our users, readers, and others for their support. We hope that this situation does not happen for a third time, and that future updates about the project are about new features rather than legal matters.