CS:GO Team Removes Plagiarised Weapon Designs

[Omnomnick]

The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team have released an official statement regarding the recent removal of weapon skins which were found to be plagiarised using art from DeviantArt member CanisAlbus. The items in question, the "M4A4 | Howl" weapon skin and the "Howling Dawn" sticker, were originally submitted by Steam Workshop contributors and have since been replaced by new designs created by the CS:GO team and are no longer available in-game except for trading and the Steam Marketplace.

Valve have taken numerous steps to resolve the situation, which you can read here:

• Both contributors have received Steam Community bans. They receive no proceeds from either item, and both items have been removed from the game.

• For owners of the M4A4 | Howl and Howling Dawn sticker, those items have been replaced by an alternative designed by the CS:GO team. These items will never be produced again, and have been assigned the ‘Contraband’ rarity.

• All other in-game items that involve at least one of the contributors in their revenue share have been discontinued.

• The Huntsman Case and Community Sticker Capsule have been revised to replace the copied and discontinued items.

• Moving forward, we will no longer work with the contributors and we will not ship any existing Workshop submission that credits their involvement.

Due to being made unobtainable, the M4A4 | Howl skin has now become extremely rare and difficult to acquire, significantly increasing its Steam Marketplace value to anywhere between £40 to £90, depending on the rarity, with StatTrak variants reaching as high as £190 at the time of writing.

This isn't the first time this has happened, however, as Valve previously had to update Faceless Void's "Timebreaker" weapon for Dota 2 which was found to have featured a design which existed in Aion: The Tower of Eternity. After being discovered shortly after the item became unobtainable, the Timebreaker was remodelled by Valve and upgraded to an "Immortal" quality item, causing the item's demand and rarity to explode, making it highly sought-after even to this day nearly two years after its initial release.

While this is definitely a rare occurrence, Valve are looking to cut down on the possibility of this happening by calling for the community to direct the copyright holder of created items to Valve's DMCA takedown page should they feel work has been plagiarised. For further details about this rather unfortunate sequence of events, be sure to check out the official statement from the CS:GO team.