Take-Two Files Lawsuit Against Creators Of The GTA Reverse Engineering Project

Really great to see Nintendo inspiring other developers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!

@PikaPhantom Unsure if satire, most of the time Nintendo just takes mod and hack-related projects down. This is a full lawsuit.

Honestly this may be the biggest sign pointing towards the GTA remasters being real considering Nintendo similarly went after AM2R a year or two before Samus Returns was announced

@Varkster Pretty sure it's satire. This literally has nothing to do with Nintendo whatsoever outside it being a Switch project

Reverse engineering laws surely don’t favour Take-Two here, no? It supersedes copyright law IIRC.

@Varkster Yeah, I was intending it as a satirical comment. It's hard to fully convey sarcasm online lol, I tried highlighting it with the excessive exclamation marks because I wanted to play it fairly straight and simple instead of bogging it down in order to make it clearer within the sentence itself

If Take-Two wants to avoid filing any more lawsuits, just bring the damn GTA games over to the Switch already. The Switch has been out for about 4.5 years, so they had more than enough time to bring over any GTA game.

I thought there was already an announcement about the early GTA game(s) being ported to the Switch in official capacity.
These passion projects are a lot of fun and a service to their communities in theory, but it never seems like a sensible thing to announce broadly. However it would be interesting to see if these lawsuits ever could go the other way, not that they should.

This may also support the rumors that GTA Remasters are on the way. Take Two wouldn't want any competition that could kill off demand for their remasters, if they're true.

Yeah, considering how long the Vita-compatible version has been around, this fuss may be more tangible speculation fuel for a possible re-release than an army of "insiders" could hope to provide.

@ModdedInkling thank goodness I don't do any business at all - wouldn't feel pleasant to in a world where you have to release certain software on certain platforms just to avoid lawsuits.

Shame they don't just hire these talented kids and release the damn thing

Okay thanks. Now Take Two have lost me as a customer, even if they release whatever they intend to release. Taking those mods down would have been enough, but they had to go the whole length, didn't they? At this rate, there's probably no AAA publisher left whom I can support in good faith (and that includes Nintendo). Indies FTW.

@BigE This isn’t Valve I’m afraid. Rockstar is too busy being secretive and restrictive with their franchises, just like Nintendo

@nhSnork they could avoid the lawsuit by not filling the lawsuit. You make it sound like they had to do it?!?

Mods like this have existed for years and years and year and barely any of them get any trouble. Look at Doom - those mods are now part of the game.

I know this is slightly different but still…. They don’t need to take this approach it really won’t help sales much like leaving the mod alone won’t hurt sales

From the lawsuit... Are Rockstar gonna steal their code for the remasters? 😂

"Requiring Defendants to deliver to Take-Two all copies of materials that infringe or violate any of Take-Two’s rights described herein, including without limitation all copies of the
modified Games and the derivative source code for the Games, and any modified versions or derivative source code for GTA-Liberty City Stories and GTA-Vice City Stories"

See guys, it's not just Nintendo that stops piracy like these.

The only question is if this trilogy gets announced at the Sony event or Nintendo's next one.

Take two, Nintendo et all need to understand once we buy a game all content is ours. Just like a piece of furniture.

About time creative companies realised they're the same as any other industry.

@Stocksy to be fair, I wasn't the one first using the phrase here,but you'd be surprised how many things IP holders actually have to do - or, in vaguer cases, sometimes feel advisable to do just in case - in the salad of related legislation. As has been as said before, all of us couch experts would at least be better off vocally campaigning to fix said legislation thank barking at businesses that try to exist between its quirks and online-disinhibited fandom justice warriors.

@San_D Lol yikes dude. Who gives a crap what some corporate arm does in defense of their ip? It’s par for the course. Just play the games that look good to you. I guarantee you every single one of them was made by a team of passionate creatives who fully deserve to be supported by the players they make games for, regardless of which publisher pays their bills.

The subtitle "Allows Grand Theft Auto 3 to be played on Switch" had me thinking that Take-Two was allowing it

These projects are great though, they make the IP owners look like idiots, waisting the opportunity of making money and pleasing fans and showing that there is no excuse for their games not being on Switch. I hope it forces their hand to step up.

@liveswired Yeah, that's not correct. You can't recreate the couch and sell that on the internet. You will be fined for selling counterfeit goods.

If you buy a game you own absolutely NOTHING except for a license to play that game in that form on officially supported hardware.

@sanderev they can make up as many bullsh*t disclaimers and laws as they want. Someday the holier than thou creative industry will have to accept the consumer owns what they purchase unless its subscription based.

GTA, Mario et all are property of the fans. Especially Mario after the disgusting disservice and contempt Nintendo showed with their horrific Super Mario 3D collection.

Nintendo can't even do a proper console refresh, such is their hatred of consumers.

@liveswired Yeah.. you are 100% wrong here.

@nessisonett Laws don't matter when you can drain your adversary financially.

@liveswired alright even if i agree sanderev is entirely full of hot air on this you are going way overboard in that middle, you're making it sound like nintendo killed millions by making a bog-standard anniversary collection

I'm thinking they could maybe counter sue under some law I recall that allows people to repair, tinker with and modify the goods they buy and own, or something like that:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/07/26/7735/how-copyright-law-stifles-your-right-to-tinker-with-tech/

https://fortune.com/2018/10/29/right-to-tinker-copyright-exemption/#:~:text=You%20Now%20Have%20the%20'Right,to%20a%20New%20Copyright%20Rule&text=Americans%20just%20got%20a%20major,order%20to%20repair%20those%20devices.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/07/26/7735/how-copyright-law-stifles-your-right-to-tinker-with-tech/

https://hackaday.com/2018/10/26/dmca-review-big-win-for-right-to-repair-zero-for-right-to-tinker/

And, yeah, maybe don't release it in any "official" capacity. And definitely don't ask any money for it.

That should be fine and dandy and well within your consumer rights, I think.

And if it's not within your consumer rights currently--fight for it to be so!

@sanderev It's not piracy: they do not provide the original game and you need it to run the mod.

@AndreaF96 that would be a counterfit copy. It doesnt use the original materials but it imitates the product to the point where it can be confused with the original. Still ilegal.

It would be easier if those passionate develepors had to give take-two 90% of whatever they earn because of the game. Or if take-two foeced them to charge X dollars for the game, with take 2 earning 90%.

My point is that if that there were laws that allowed these games to exist as long as they paid a "tax" for copyright per download it would make things much easier. And it qould be an ofdicial great way for artists/developers to show their talent to companies.

@ss213 It's not a counterfeit copy because it needs the original game, which you must already have. Not illegal, just a mod, because you have the right to modify the things that you own however you like.

@sanderev this is no piracy, it goes under fair use. To play these ports you have to have game assets from your legal copy of PC/Android release.

This may not even be a fair use question, this may not violate copyright at all. What are they ACTUALLY doing? Nothing is clear about this. If they are writing code or creating a device that allows a legally-purchased copy to be played on something else, that's not a copyright violation. It MIGHT (and I say might because it's not clear these licensing provisions are even enforceable) violate the game's license if somebody uses the re3 project to play GTA 3 on Switch, but that's on the user, not on re3.

To put it more simply, if this operates more like an emulator, that's perfectly legal.

@FantasiaWHT Modern Vintage Gamer has tried to explain why Take Two could have a valid point (under current laws of course) and even win the case...
https://youtu.be/Z9OZ2A-c62g

Yeap this is a sign that GTA may likely come to Switch, Take Two wouldn't care if you could play GTA on Switch unless they too is planning to release those for Switch themselves.

@Whitestrider I do appreciate somebody sharing information like that, I'd be interested in learning more, but I also don't want to watch 13 minutes of video, hah. I'd rather read the same content (which would probably take me less than 5 minutes).

@FantasiaWHT the video is really interesting though. I can't make a summary unfortunately because there's a lot of technical stuff.

Someday I'd like to see consumers and pirates sue a huge corporation for theft and illegal disappearance of game ROMs. But really, let's just implement a sensible public domain system so games become safe from the manipulations and disappearing acts of corporations after a set number of years.

Problem I have here is re3 never changed or removed any of the original codes from the game so that in itself if true is no violation. And if their games loads onto other platform from of re3 software that is emulation. So the lawyer has also got themselves in a catch-22 by making a general statement not source how or where it changed the GTA source code as it sounds like nothing was changed only re3 software was the only difference. I think this has more to do with GTA coming to Switch in 2022 is the reason why they are doing what they are doing. Maybe if they were open and honest this would do more to bolster them then using the suit to stop copycats. But I think this doesn't sound like it will go to the lawyer as they are making General claims but provide nothing of the Source was altered.

@nessisonett Yeah copyright law only really applies to distribution, if people are just taking something and trying to reverse engineer it, well that is a standard practice among most established businesses, and there are no laws preventing anyone from doing that. Now if they were trying to take patented designs and sell them as their own, that is when the lawyers get involved.