Take-Two Interactive, art, and shameless self-promotion ► Ludology Now!

Last week the painting pictured below was pulled from Etsy because the IP rights company EBRAND, working for Take-Two Interactive, flagged it as violating their copyright for Red Dead Redemption 2.

How’d that happen? Well, we have to go back a bit. Stay tuned, the story is weird.

Why we are talking about paintings

If you’re a regular Ludology Now! reader, you know that I don’t just talk about games, but I also make video games. Making video games is one of my favorite things to do, but it’s not the thing I’m best at. The thing I’m best at is writing — these columns are a good outlet for that, for trying different things, for covering different topics I might otherwise not have a chance to talk about in a professional setting. I love the balance of important topics like Stop Killing Games and silly topics like the city of Savannah, Georgia, in video games. I’m a published author and a novelist currently working on a historical fiction novel set during the Age of Sail in the Mediterranean. When I examine all my skills at arm’s length, it’s impossible to not say I’m best at writing.

Still, it’s not enough. I don’t know why it’s not enough, but it very clearly isn’t. If it was enough I would not have started painting in 2020, I wouldn’t have built an easel, I wouldn’t have wasted so much money on brushes and paints. I wouldn’t have kept painting, daily for months, breaks here and there, then daily again. It was a habit I kept dipping back into; when working from home I would cross my fingers and hope for a business call that I could take outside, so I could spend that time also painting while solving whatever problem was on the other end.

I couldn’t get enough. I still can’t. I watch YouTube videos from people I’ve never heard of to see different approaches. I experiment with different styles and materials. Painting on canvas, painting on wood, painting on shells, on linen, on the wall and the floor and your hands. Oils, acrylics, watercolors, gouache. Inks, charcoal. Coffee. You can make a good painting with anything. It’s fantastic. It’s magic.

Everyone should read Painting as a Pastime by Winston Churchill in the same way everyone should read Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch. The act of painting will change the way you look at the world. Painting has made me a better writer and a better game designer.

I’ve found it’s also very beneficial to have multiple creative hobbies, as performing each one will help you solve issues in the others. I have had story breakthroughs while painting and solved perspective issues while writing. It all weaves and locks together in a truly beautiful way.

A little over a month ago, after six years of painting in solitude and only sharing the good ones on social media, I attended a crafts festival and sold my art to humans in public. I chose to sell under the name DogTree Studios because I like both of those things. People said nice words, they touched the pictures, they told me what it reminded them of, they asked me where I got my ideas. It was so overwhelming and, honestly, really, really fun.

When the festival was over I immediately wanted to do it again. Luckily, Savannah is a tourist town, and our biggest college draw is specifically for artists. It costs $10 to get a license to sell art in public here, down on River Street and in the historic squares and Forsyth Park. Money well spent and pretty quickly earned back, (thankfully) with profit. I also opened an Etsy store. Here’s where the story comes back to video games.

The Take-Two / RDR2 story you were scrolling for

On Tuesday, June 9, 2026, I received the following email from Etsy’s Legal team:

Hi DogTreeStudiosArt,

This is Etsy’s Trust & Safety Team. We’re committed to keeping Etsy a special destination for unique and creative goods. One important part of our ongoing work is helping sellers understand and follow our policies for selling on Etsy.

Why we’re reaching out
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. recently let us know that they believe some of your listings infringe their intellectual property (IP). In line with our Intellectual Property Policy, we’ve carefully reviewed their report and have removed these listings from our marketplace. This means they’re not active anymore and won’t be seen by buyers—and you can’t edit or relist them on Etsy. To see which listings we removed, check the full report at the end of this email.

Some important things to keep in mind

All IP infringement reports have to be submitted by an authorized reporter. Some third-party companies specialize in protecting brands and IP owners’ properties for them—you may see their names on the full report.

Under our Intellectual Property Policy, IP owners (or representatives) are responsible for reporting alleged infringing listings to Etsy. We’ll confirm the info in the report before removing any items from sellers’ shops.

What you’ll need to do next
To avoid more policy violations, make sure to follow our Intellectual Property Policy. If you have multiple policy violations, we may need to remove any Star Seller badges you have or suspend your account.

Here are some articles from our Seller Handbook and Help Center that can help you better understand intellectual property rights:

The Ultimate Guide to Intellectual Property

5 Common Questions About Intellectual Property on Etsy

What to Know About Etsy’s Intellectual Property Reporting Program

What to Do if You Receive a Notice of Intellectual Property Infringement

Intellectual Property Rights and Resources for EU Sellers

Since Etsy can’t share legal advice, we recommend reaching out to an attorney if you have more questions.

Again, this is the painting in question:

This painting, which I fully said was inspired by Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2, was taken down for copyright infringement. Now, I would never say Etsy’s entire business model is probably based at least halfway around users making money via copyright infringement (I think my first purchase on that site was six years ago for a replica Ocarina of Time milk bottle?) but there is a LOT of stuff which really toes the line. Let’s take another example from Red Dead Redemption 2, perhaps this 100% full-on recreation of the Wheeler & Rawson store catalogue. Is this IP infringement? I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer.

I was fairly public about this on Bluesky and Zachery Zwiezen from Kotaku reached out and asked me to email him with more details, which I did along with screenshots of the full emails Etsy Legal sent me and the backend of the now-inactive Etsy post. I wasn’t sure how that would end up but no harm in having someone else check around, and I didn’t want to email my one last remaining contact at Rockstar for something I knew they had no information about. Went to bed confused and a bit angry.

Nearly a full day later Zwiezen emailed me back, saying, “Update: No word back from Rockstar or Take Two.” I wasn’t surprised. Part of me hoped that Kotaku would run a story on it — not because I thought it would change anything but I thought the visibility would be good for selling paintings — but with no comment from any of the parties involved (and Etsy’s statement fairly definitive as just ‘it is what it is’) I figured this was a battle I had lost without even being able to fire a shot in defense.

The next day I went to Forsyth Park here in Savannah and sold paintings for about four hours. I met at least seven dogs, a very nice couple from Florida, and another very nice woman from (I think?) Germany. I also got a number of compliments on my art which I did not understand from a trio of Chinese women who did not speak English. It was a good day.

That was Thursday; on Friday, around 13:00, Etsy Legal emailed me again. Here is that email:

Dear Christopher Teuton,

Etsy recently removed certain content from your shop based on a report of infringement we received from EBRAND. The complaining party has withdrawn their infringement report against you for the listing(s) 4494042122. We have made a note of this in your account.

If your shop is active, you will be able to find the listing(s) from this report in the Inactive section of your Shop Manager. You will soon have the ability to edit and reactivate these listings at your discretion. Please note that Etsy will not reactivate them for you.

If you have questions about this withdrawal, please reach out to the complaining party directly (their information was provided in the email we sent you about the report). Etsy is not in a position to speak on behalf of the complaining party and cannot provide legal advice. You can also speak to an attorney.

Thank you,
Etsy Legal

So, that’s it… I guess? Would that had happened if Zwiezen didn’t reach out to Rockstar and Take-Two and asked them about it? Maybe not? If so, big thanks to him — art is the main way I make my living, after all, and any suppression of that is not just bad for business but it’s bad for morale. Also, it made no ‘effing sense, right? In the most gratuitous of readings, yes, my painting could be considered fan art. But there’s so much unique, original things in my version (the entire foreground, for instance) which pulls it away from that. If the Rawson & Wheeler catalogue can exist, then it only makes sense that my painting should also be able to live alongside it.

What did we learn?

Is there a lesson or a moral to this story? “Know people who will email Rockstar for you” seems pretty poor. “Publicly complain when you are done wrong by the intricacies of corporations,” seems closer, but also not something I really want to convey or do. “Sit tight when some third-party algorithm makes a mistake and hope it sorts itself out in a few days?”

The whole thing was a weird situation with an even weirder ending. I am still confused and slightly anxious about it. I reactivated the painting’s listing (which you can view by clicking here!) as Etsy suggested, but I still feel like there’s another boot that’s gonna drop. It might not, but the whole way the storefront and Etsy’s Legal team handled this interaction has left me nervous that they might pull any listing at random at any time. As someone who just started their art selling career, and as someone who printed 200 business cards with a QR code leading to their Etsy store, I’d really like to feel safer selling there.