The Kickstarter project Prospero’s Price has been halted by a spurious copyright claim. The copyright troll in question rather amazingly claims to own copyright on combinations of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Lovecraft. Even more amazingly, Kickstarter felt obliged to suspend guffaws of mocking laughter and actually take him at his word. Such ‘DMCA takedown requests’ (as they are known) are being widely abused like this, and WordPress.com is seeking high-level legal rulings in the USA which would allow for legal suits to be brought against those who “knowingly materially misrepresent” a case of alleged copyright infringement.

The bad typography on the above cover, however, is very clearly a criminal act (against good taste)…