Modders are fighting back against Take-Two Interactive, as the team behind the re3 and reVC Grand Theft Auto fan projects have filed a new counterclaim docket after being hit with numerous allegations and a lawsuit from the publisher for copyright infringement. Earlier this year, a group of programmers and longtime Grand Theft Auto fans released re3 and reVC, which are enhanced versions of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City that were created by successfully reverse-engineering its source codes. Due to its popularity, the project easily caught the attention of Rockstar Games' publisher Take-Two who issued a DMCA takedown to remove the project's repositories on Github. However, when the files were restored following a counternotice, Take-Two filed a lawsuit, accusing the team of piracy.
Filed in September, the lawsuit claims that the Grand Theft Auto modders created pirated versions of GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City, the company claimed that the illegal distribution of the recreated games caused "irreparable harm" to its distribution of the GTA games. The mod teams responded by claiming that Take-Two's accusation was incorrect. The two stated that the projects require the original games to play and were created from scratch using modern coding languages, countering the publisher without any further details on the case.
According to Torrent Freak, the mod team has officially responded to the lawsuit with a counterclaim against Take-Two, stating that their actions were lawful and protected under the Copyright Act. The mod team's attorneys have addressed each of Take-Two's allegations, largely denying them but in some cases stating insufficient knowledge, starting with the copyright infringement allegation. The modders claim that any copyrighted materials that were used in the projects were done so that the modders could fix the bugs in the original titles. In this case, the two modders believe that the parties' actions are protected under fair use and therefore shouldn't be punishable by law.
In addition to addressing the claims, the modding team raised several other points in their defense. Rockstar stopped releasing bug fixes and patches for the original games several years before the modifications came about, which caused the modders to need to use the copyrighted materials to fix these bugs. In addition, Rockstar had previously allowed and even encouraged mods of its games, leading the modders to claim that granted them an "implied license." The modders have also pointed out that the projects could've helped out the sales for the original games, considering that they need to be purchased online to be played with the enhancements.
Take-Two took down Grand Theft Auto mods related to the PS2 classics of the franchise over the summer, resulting in numerous speculations that the mods were getting in the way of plans for an unannounced trilogy remaster. This was short-lived, as the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition was released shortly after with overhauled versions of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is currently available on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Source: Torrent Freak