Well this is a shame but in many ways to be expected. Take-Two Interactive Software, the parent company of Rockstar Games, has filed a lawsuit against the developers of the reverse-engineered GTA III and Vice City code.
This is a bit of an ongoing saga, as Take-Two first got the GitHub repositories taken down, which were later restored when the developer of a fork submitted a counter-notice which wasn't argued so they all went back up. The repositories are still live on GitHub right now. The notice mentions this with Take-Two saying the counter notices were "were made in bad faith, and knowingly and deliberately misrepresented to GitHub the contents".
Plenty more is argued as well of course. In the notice it complains how the code now runs on platforms it was never released for where the "Defendants have sought to exploit a potential market that belongs exclusively to Take-Two", it argues against new cheats enabled in the source code which "are strictly prohibited under Take-Two’s terms of service". It goes further, complaining about modding which Take-Two say "encouraging users to further infringe the original Games and to violate their agreements with Take-Two that prohibit such activities".
As a result of the code being public, Take-Two are claiming it the "Defendants have caused and continue to cause irreparable harm".
Take-Two are looking to get damages paid which as of yet "are not currently ascertainable", so they want it to be worked out. On top of that they want the "maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each work infringed" and they also want their "attorneys’ fees and full costs" paid as well.
The point about cheats is a funny one. Single-player games from the early 2000s have cheats added in? Extra modding too? Oh no, how completely terrible for people to further enjoy them.
Why was this lawsuit coming to be expected? Well, reverse-engineered code tends to be a grey area with it often being against the law, and code from leaks is a big no for all sorts of obvious legal reasons. That said, the source code did require people to actually buy the games for the data, so Take-Two would have still be getting revenue thanks to it.
Sadly though, like most major publishers, they shy away from any sort of open source. In this case, Take-Two and Rockstar are reportedly doing a big GTA Remastered Trilogy so moving to fully protect their code was obvious.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: rustybroomhandleAmusing comment from Nightdive studios on the topic:
https://twitter.com/pripyatbeast/status/1433925671995068418
QuoteYou do this to a game @NightdiveStudio is working on and you get offered a job.
Shame that Night Dive cannot release enhance edition of No One Lives Forever due to Warner and Activision's block despite already obtained its source code.
Last edited by rea987 on 13 September 2021 at 8:40 am UTC
slaapliedje 13 Sep
Quoting: rea987Seriously? That is an awesome game that deserves a re-release, hard to find now.Quoting: rustybroomhandleAmusing comment from Nightdive studios on the topic:
https://twitter.com/pripyatbeast/status/1433925671995068418
QuoteYou do this to a game @NightdiveStudio is working on and you get offered a job.
Shame that Night Dive cannot release enhance edition of No One Lives Forever due to Warner and Activision's block despite already obtained its source code.
Quoting: slaapliedjeSeriously? That is an awesome game that deserves a re-release, hard to find now.
https://www.thegamer.com/no-one-lives-forever-the-operative-legal-issues-explained/
https://www.thegamer.com/no-one-lives-forever-nightdive-update-interview/
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2021/04/the-sad-story-behind-a-dead-pc-game-that-cant-come-back/
Not a fan of linking Kotaku at all but afaik latter is the original article.
Last edited by rea987 on 14 September 2021 at 6:47 am UTC
Quoting: rustybroomhandleAmusing comment from Nightdive studios on the topic:So why isn't Doom64 supported on Linux? There's a Linux version of the engine already...
https://twitter.com/pripyatbeast/status/1433925671995068418
QuoteYou do this to a game @NightdiveStudio is working on and you get offered a job.
areamanplaysgame 18 Sep
QuoteIn the notice it complains how the code now runs on platforms it was never released for
Am I missing something? I thought there was an exception in the DMCA for exactly this - making software more useful to end users.
Quoting: Ardje"Defendants have sought to exploit a potential market that belongs exclusively to Take-Two"
A market is where you exchange value for value.
You can't exactly say that giving away for free something is exploiting a market, because then you do not understand capitalism. Exploiting means you gain something of monetary value. None of the hackers gained something.
Eh... there's a whole cesspool full of commerce clause case law about this. If you are giving something away that someone else intended to profit from, you are a participant in the market because you are reducing demand for the commercial product.
Quoting: areamanplaysgameQuoteIn the notice it complains how the code now runs on platforms it was never released for
Am I missing something? I thought there was an exception in the DMCA for exactly this - making software more useful to end users.
[..]
I don't know about DMCA, but that exception is definitely valid in the EU. That's how it's legal to "circumvent" DVD and Blu-ray encryption on Linux - if a product cannot be used in the advertised manner on your system, you're allowed to make it work.
slaapliedje 19 Sep
Quoting: CybolicBringing up the decryption for DVD reminds me of all the old shenanigans... like when Debian used to have a non-US repository because it wasn't allowed to install encryption software in the USA... anyone else remember that?Quoting: areamanplaysgameQuoteIn the notice it complains how the code now runs on platforms it was never released for
Am I missing something? I thought there was an exception in the DMCA for exactly this - making software more useful to end users.
[..]
I don't know about DMCA, but that exception is definitely valid in the EU. That's how it's legal to "circumvent" DVD and Blu-ray encryption on Linux - if a product cannot be used in the advertised manner on your system, you're allowed to make it work.
Quoting: slaapliedjeYup.Quoting: CybolicBringing up the decryption for DVD reminds me of all the old shenanigans... like when Debian used to have a non-US repository because it wasn't allowed to install encryption software in the USA... anyone else remember that?Quoting: areamanplaysgameQuoteIn the notice it complains how the code now runs on platforms it was never released for
Am I missing something? I thought there was an exception in the DMCA for exactly this - making software more useful to end users.
[..]
I don't know about DMCA, but that exception is definitely valid in the EU. That's how it's legal to "circumvent" DVD and Blu-ray encryption on Linux - if a product cannot be used in the advertised manner on your system, you're allowed to make it work.
Quoting: slaapliedjeBringing up the decryption for DVD reminds me of all the old shenanigans... like when Debian used to have a non-US repository because it wasn't allowed to install encryption software in the USA... anyone else remember that?Ah, the old "munitions export without a license" shenanigans!
GustyGhost 20 Sep
Quoteit complains how the code now runs on platforms it was never released for where the "Defendants have sought to exploit a potential market that belongs exclusively to Take-Two"
I am fluent in tyrant speak. The English translation of this line is: "We want to continue to exclusively deny access to our games to punish users who use platforms that we don't like".
The complaint states something about exploiting markets, but the key thing to note here is that THEY HAVE FAILED TO 'EXPLOIT' THIS MARKET so they have no grounds to be upset when somebody else comes along and does the job instead.
I have saved the repo to my own storage just to be sure any take down requests amount to a game of slashy hydra head.
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