Aggressive copyright claims couldn't erase Cookie's Bustle

Cookie’s Bustle, a bizarre point-and-click adventure released for Japanese PCs in 1999, became the focus of a long-running campaign to scrub almost all traces of its existence online. Preservationists at the Video Game History Foundation pushed back after what they call an aggressive copyright troll repeatedly issued takedowns that threatened to turn the game into lost media.

The game itself plays like a fever dream: you control Cookie Blair, a five-year-old from New Jersey who believes she’s a teddy bear, and travel to Bombo World a century after an alien landing to compete in the Bombo World Olympics. Early scenes include Cookie being refused boarding a bus before terrorists blow it up and are gunned down by an attack chopper, and later you encounter the unmistakable corpse of Lara Croft in an ancient temple.

The VGHF says many of the takedowns traced back to a company called Graceware and its owner, Brandon White, and even targeted a VGHF webpage that simply stated the organization owns a copy of the game.

Japan, New Jersey

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