This is not an excuse. I was adding nuance to the claim made in the title. I also don’t disagree that Bethesda is ultimately responsible for the contractors it hires, and if Tracer made an erroneous DMCA request, Bethesda should take responsibility for correcting it. However, given Bethesda’s previous treatment of similar projects like Daggerfall Unity and OpenMW, I think a simple error is a more plausible explanation than the company being a copyright troll or an intentional action by Bethesda.