The Day Before's copyright issue is real after all

The Day Before developer Fntastic is still fighting a trademark dispute with a calendar app.

Whilst we found out earlier this month that The Day Before had been delisted from Steam due to a copyright issue, the developer of the calendar app has now gone public about the dispute, confirming that it is "taking measures" to protect its trademark for an app that has exceeded 40 million downloads since the app launched under the same name, The Day Before, almost 15 years ago.

"We first distributed the app under the name 'The Day Before' in 2010 to provide anniversary count app services used in many countries around the world," the app developer said in a statement to Eurogamer. 

"We hold trademark rights to the app's name 'The Day Before' and have so far recorded over 40m downloads. Since the trademark registration in Korea in 2015, we have held the right (registered in the name of 'The Day Before' CEO Lee Sun-jae). Knowing that the game of the same name was produced, we are taking measures to protect trademark rights."

The statement goes on to confirm that it holds the trademark in a variety of territories, including Korea, the United States, China, Russia, Japan, Vietnam, and the European Union and insists it wants "to solve the trademark problem as soon as possible and continue to protect the app so that users can use it without worrying".

It's just the latest in a long and bizarre line of events, with the game's community moderators not even being sure if The Day Before is real. It does, however, confirm that at least the copyright claim is real – something some people had been doubting, too.

Fntastic recently released a short "dev vlog" as part of its ongoing "Life at Fntastic" video series… but all it's really done is confuse fans looking forward to the game even more. 

As we summarized at the time, the six-minute video consists of old, if technically current, gameplay, some much older footage from pre-alpha prototypes, and brief shots of narrator Dana Soltangazinova, a Fntastic communications team member, but no other devs… even though it's a dev vlog.

"Our team, as always, is not afraid of difficulties and constantly moves forward," the video concluded. "All in all, we've been creating The Day Before for four years. It's been a long and exciting journey, and we believe that after the game's release, we'll give people faith that in this life, if you persevere toward a dream, it will come true despite all the obstacles and doubts in your path. 

"Until then, we will continue doing our best to finalize the game and release it on the 10th of November. We're using the month [sic] we have to make The Day Before exactly the way we've always imagined it to be." 

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