A leaked Tomb Raider script is looking pretty legit now that Square Enix DMCA’d it

The Streisand effect has never been heard of. It's when someone tries to keep information out of the public eye only to have it spread further than it could have traveled.

If you told me last week that you had a casting script for the next Tomb Raider game, I wouldn't have believed you.

If you told me that the head lawyer at Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics immediately sent a DMCA takedown notice, I would think that it was real.

Over the last few days, that happened. There was an unusual segment on Colin Moriarty's Sacred Symbols that featured part of a casting script for British actors to read for the part of Tomb Raider. They are looking for a female in their 30s who is white, athletic, and has a prototype of Emily Blunt.

He read a passage about a new tone for the game.

Lara Croft is now at the top of her game. Gone are the days of the young inexperienced woman dealing with matters of legacy and familial reckoning, Lara has let go of her childhood and fully embraced a life of adventure and purpose. Her legendary career has been lauded in print and tabloids, tall tales of adventure that have inspired a new generation of Tomb Raiders to seek their fortunes in the world. And with this new phase of her life, Lara fully accepted her place among the ruins.

For many years, Lara plumbed the depths of forgotten places, played cat in mouse with many nefarious opponents, and worked to uncover, preserve and protect the lost secrets of the world lest they fall into the wrong hands. But as the years have passed, Lara has become lonely at the top. The beginning of this next chapter presents Lara with the quintessentially adult problem facing something too big to handle alone on this new adventure. Lara will encounter a challenge she can only overcome with a team at her side. Collaboration is foreign to her. She’s always succeeded alone. So, in this situation, she’s a fish out of water.

The two casting scenes that were acted out by Chris andDustin were about a woman named Tanvi and a man namedDevindra. I hope I'm spelling it right. There is no nudity or sex in the note that the female actor they are looking for has.

The same day that the DMCA was sent to Crystal Dynamics, they also sent a threat to his source of income via the Patreon page.

After spending $1,000 to consult with his own lawyer and time with Patreon's legal team, he decided to remove the segment that he thought was journalism. He didn't steal it, he didn't ask for it, and he didn't buy it. I was acting in the belief that this is fair use.

The original notice was obtained by me. There aren't many possibilities about what Crystal Dynamics takes issue with. There are no visuals that would belong to Square Enix, no logos, and no pictures of Tomb Raider in the most recent version of the audio podcasts. It's just a sound. We acted out the two scenes that were given to us after we read the rest of the cover page. He says that removing the audio satisfied the legal team.

He doesn't blame Patreon for not pushing back. I don't blame them nor am I mad at them. He doesn't want to be a martyr himself.

I think we could make a fair use of it, but I don't have the time, means, or energy to fight, and I don't want to open us up to further trouble. I think the point in these cases is that it's easier to capitulate. He told me that he is a person running a business out of his house.

In the follow-up video, Richard Hoeg, a lawyer who covers these sorts of issues in his own Virtual LegalityPodcast, joined Moriarty. It is difficult to tell what is fair use.

"If it's the design document that you read out loud in your video, that's going to give the other side more purchase to bring an intellectual property claim." Sacred Symbols doesn't want to fight to find out until there's a verdict in court.

The Sacred Symbols show isn't completely caving in to what they think are Square Enix's demands. The uncut, original version of the show will remain on the internet until Square Enix takes action there as well.

The company didn't reply to the request.