Following a lawsuit against Take-Two for copyright infringement, the authors of the Grand Theft Auto projects, re3 and reVC, have filed a counterclaim against the video game publisher.
In response to several charges and a lawsuit filed by Take-Two Interactive alleging copyright infringement against them, the team behind the re3 and reVC Grand Theft Auto fan projects filed a new counterclaim docket in the United States District Court in Los Angeles. Grand Theft Auto fans will be pleased to know that re3 and reVC, which are enhanced versions of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, were released earlier this year by a group of programmers and longtime Grand Theft Auto fans who successfully reverse-engineered the original games’ source codes. Given its popularity, Rockstar Games’ publisher Take-Two quickly took notice of the project and requested a DMCA takedown to have the project’s repositories on Github taken down and removed from the internet. Take-Two, on the other hand, initiated a lawsuit against the team once the files were restored as a result of a counternotice. The team was accused of piracy.
Grand Theft Auto modders are accused of creating pirated copies of GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in September. The firm alleges that unauthorised distribution of the rebuilt games has caused “irreparable harm” to its distribution of the GTA games. The mod teams responded by stating that Take-accusation Two’s was unfounded and that they were correct. The two indicated that the projects require the original games to be played and that they were constructed from the ground up using modern coding languages, in response to the publisher’s claims but provided no further information on the situation.
A counterclaim against Take-Two, reports Torrent Freak, has been filed on behalf of the mod team in response to the lawsuit. The counterclaim claims that the mod team’s actions were legal and protected under the Copyright Act. The attorneys for the mod team have responded to each of Take-charges, Two’s mainly denying them but in some cases claiming insufficient knowledge, beginning with the copyright infringement complaint and working their way down the list. In their defence, the modders assert that any copyrighted assets that were used in the projects were done so that the modders could correct the faults in the original games, which they believe was the case. In this particular instance, the two modders claim that the parties’ acts are protected by fair use and, as a result, should not be subject to legal penalties.
In addition to responding to the allegations, the modding team brought up a number of other arguments in their defence. Several years before the modifications were created, Rockstar stopped distributing bug updates and patches for the original games, which forced the modders to resort to using copyrighted content to remedy the flaws. Furthermore, Rockstar had previously permitted and even encouraged the creation of mods for its games, leading the modders to assert that this constituted a “implied permission.” Furthermore, the modders have pointed out that the projects could’ve aided in increasing sales for the original games, given that the original games must be acquired online in order to be played with the modifications in place.
Grand Theft Auto mods linked to the PlayStation 2 classics were removed by Take-Two during the summer, sparking widespread speculation that they were interfering with plans for an unannounced trilogy remaster of the franchise. This was short-lived, however, as the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, which included improved versions of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, was published shortly afterwards.
