Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive continues to issue DMCA takedowns to remove Grand Theft Auto mods and fan projects, with Grand Theft Auto IV appearing to be the company's newest target. Take-Two aggressively took down Grand Theft Auto mods related to the PS2-era games in the franchise over the summer, resulting in numerous speculations that the mods were getting in the way of plans for an unannounced trilogy remaster. These theories were later proven true, as Rockstar Games revealed Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition in early October.
In the past, Take-Two limited Grand Theft Auto tributes and mods under the pretenses the creations are "bad behavior" or harmful to "the economy." As a result, Take-Two's legal team has frequently threatened to - or, in fact, did - file lawsuits against many of these fan-made Grand Theft Auto creations. The publisher recently initiated a lawsuit for copyright infringement against a group of 14 programmers that successfully reverse-engineered the source code for both GTA 3 and Vice City, and later uploaded free revamped versions on the internet. This project allowed both titles to be easily ported to a variety of consoles and featured numerous fixes. The modding group filed a counterclaim against Take-Two, and the ongoing lawsuit is yet to be settled.
According to Grand Theft Auto modding site LibertyCity, Take-Two requested the removal of numerous mods before issuing DMCA strikes and permanently removing them from the website. Two of the takedowns are directly related to Grand Theft Auto IV and are the oldest and most-downloaded mods on the website. Additionally, one of the takedowns is targeted at a save file instead of a mod, raising numerous questions. GTA IV EEFLC (65%) allows players to start at 65% completion and comes with no enhancements or modifications to the game. Meanwhile the other takedown, The Lost and Damned Unlocked, is a GTA IV mod released in 2009 that enables exclusive The Lost and Damned DLC content in GTA IV's base game, replacing Niko Bellic with biker Johnny Klebitz. One Twitter dataminer, Ash_735, claims that the DMCA takedown for the mod is odd, as the latest upgrade for the game, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Complete Edition enables the same features due to its merger.
These removals might not surprise some. A recent leak by an industry insider hinted that Rockstar's next remaster could be Grand Theft Auto IV bundled with its The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony expansion packs. Although no evidence was presented, Take-Two similarly took down mods that included or altered content related to the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition pre-announcement - which points to GTA IV potentially receiving the same treatment.
Take-Two's takedown spree continued over the past year, and it doesn't look like the publisher is shying away from Grand Theft Auto mods any time soon. Regardless of whether these actions are for an upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV remaster, modders and community members appear to be highly frustrated and disappointed. Years of improving the classic GTA games are unraveling, and it seems that more takedowns could be on the way.
Source: LibertyCity, Ash_735/Twitter