Hello Kitty Lawsuit TrackerUnofficial Sanrio Legal Archive
ControversiesReal

Fan mods

Fans have spent years dropping Hello Kitty and her castmates into games that have nothing to do with Sanrio: a livery in Grand Theft Auto, a plushie in a farming sim, a weapon skin in Counter-Strike. Sanrio’s own legal page calls this kind of thing illegal. The mods are everywhere anyway. What is harder to find is any sign Sanrio has actually gone after one.

Fan-madeEverything on this page is unauthorized and non-commercial. None of it is licensed.

Sanrio’s stated rule

Sanrio’s IP page calls these illegal

Everything in this section is fan-made and unauthorized. None of it is licensed. Sanrio’s own IP page explicitly classifies fan-made "clothing or other accessories to be used by digital game avatars" as illegal, which directly covers cosmetic game mods. These mods exist and are popular anyway.

An antique engraving of a small white cartoon cat with a red bow standing inside a blocky cubic voxel landscape of square trees, clearly inserted where it does not belong.

Four games

Minecraft, Stardew Valley, GTA V, and Counter-Strike

A representative sample, not a full index: cosmetic mods, vehicle liveries, retextures, and weapon skins, across four different communities.

Minecraft

Abundant
  • Planet Minecraft hosts community "sanrio" and "hellokitty" tag pages, plus individual packs like "Kawaii Hello Kitty" and "Pink! Hello Kitty Hotbar."
  • CurseForge carries "Cute Sanrio Glazed Terracotta" (~10.4K downloads), "Hello Kitty Totem of Undying" (~7.0K), and the broader "Kawaii World!" (~219.8K, a kawaii-aesthetic pack rather than a pure Sanrio one).
  • Modrinth has the "Baby Kitty And Friends" resource pack, plus an MCreator "Sanriocraft" mod.

Stardew Valley

A deep Nexus Mods catalog
  • Sanrio Plushies (#13622, 20+ plushies including three Hello Kitty variants) and a newer Sanrio Plushies (#25088).
  • Sanrio Farm Animals (#28562) turns barn and coop animals into Sanrio characters; Hello Kitty Furniture (#28210); Sanrio Companions (#29397); Sanrio Hats and Accessories (#29471); Berryz Hello Kitty Sprinklers (#19526).
  • Most are furniture, animal, plushie, or companion retextures via Content Patcher, rather than human-NPC portrait swaps.

Grand Theft Auto V

Liveries, peds, accessories
  • A Honda Civic (EK9) Hello Kitty livery is confirmed on GTA5-Mods; a Lamborghini Huracán Hello Kitty livery appears in search results but the exact page was not individually confirmed.
  • Player accessories include a Hello Kitty Chain, a Hello Kitty Beanie, and a Sanrio cupcake backpack, plus a Sanrio Tattoo for single-player and FiveM.
  • Mirror sites carry more vehicles (McLaren and Ferrari Hello Kitty builds).

Counter-Strike

Heavy on GameBanana, all unofficial
  • GameBanana hosts client-side mods (mostly CS:Source): "Hello Kitty" (#10621), "High-Res Hello Kitty" (#19892), Hello Kitty Deagle/USP/grenade skins, and maps like fy_kittybuzzy. CS2 has its own GameBanana skins hub with Sanrio reskins.
  • The hard line: every Hello Kitty / CS item is fan-made local file replacement. It renders only on sv_pure 0 or non-VAC servers and will not work in official matchmaking, where VAC treats replacing client files as interference.
  • Valve has never released a licensed Hello Kitty or Sanrio weapon finish or sticker. No such item has ever passed Steam Workshop approval into the real CS economy.

The licensing tension

A litigious rights holder, and no verified mod takedown

Sanrio is aggressive about its trademarks in general. But the specific thing you would expect to find, a Sanrio DMCA notice against a game mod, did not turn up.

No specific, formally documented DMCA takedown of a Sanrio game mod was found. We flag that honestly rather than invent one.

The closest verified friction (and it is not a formal DMCA) is the Nexus mod "Hello Kitty Armor" for Skyrim (#5921). The Hello Kitty face was reportedly removed by the creator after Nexus staff said it could not be used without Sanrio’s permission. That is a voluntary, staff-prompted removal. The exact wording rests on a search summary of the mod page (medium confidence).

Context, verified: Sanrio is genuinely litigious. Its IP page rejects "fair use" defenses, warns that a DMCA counter-notice may force Sanrio "to file a lawsuit," and it runs a standing DMCA apparatus. Its litigation history includes Sanrio v. $avage Clothing LLC (2023), which ended in a permanent injunction and $30,000 in statutory damages. None of that is a mod case.

Context, labeled analog: Nintendo, explicitly not Sanrio, is the textbook aggressive fan-content enforcer (mass DMCA of 379 fan games from Game Jolt in 2021, 500+ in 2016, takedowns of IP mods inside Garry’s Mod). It shows how a Japanese rights holder can behave toward fan mods, but it is a Nintendo record, not a Sanrio-mod case.

Sources of record