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Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

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Re: Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

#21

Post by Const-me »

klodolph wrote: post #14
Const-me wrote: post #7

Probably someone in the upper management of take-two had the idea of downsizing their legal department. That department have decided to demonstrate how incredibly useful they are, by suing a few people from Germany, New Zealand, Turkey, and United Kingdom. > Defendants are well aware that they do not possess the right to copy, adapt, or distribute derivative GTA source code, or the audiovisual elements of the Games,…

> I think the opposite is true, what they did was fair use. The defendants are outside US, pretty sure everything they did was 100% legal in their jurisdictions. There's just no way that it's fair use to distribute a decompiled copy of a game. Reverse engineering and decompiling are generally legal, but they don't strip away copyrights from the code. Think about it this way... compiling source code does not change wh…

> no way that it's fair use to distribute a decompiled copy of a game

That’s not what these people did. A source code of a re-implementation of a game engine is not a copy of the game. I have compiled and tested that thing, but it was only legal for me to do so because I had the original one bought on Steam.

> I could get sued by the composer

Right. “The great thing about this country is you can sue anyone for pretty much anything, and you probably win. Or at least, get a settlement.” https://gta.fandom.com/wiki/Rakin_and_Ponzer

Re: Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

#22

Post by klodolph »

dasKrokodil wrote: post #8

Man, regardless of who is in the right legally, I wish these big corporations had a better sense of humor and would understand and appreciate that the people who go to these lengths to understand and recreate the original code aren't their enemies, but their biggest fans.

They make money from having lots of customers, not from having a few obsessed fans. I’ve heard this argument before but the kind of people who are obsessed enough to reverse-engineer old games don’t necessarily even play new games. They’re often fans of the old games and don’t play new games, or they’re people who are interested in reverse engineering.

You can release a remaster of an old game, but any reverse-engineered version would be competing with it.

Re: Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

#24

Post by Const-me »

duckmysick wrote: post #20
Const-me wrote: post #7

Probably someone in the upper management of take-two had the idea of downsizing their legal department. That department have decided to demonstrate how incredibly useful they are, by suing a few people from Germany, New Zealand, Turkey, and United Kingdom. > Defendants are well aware that they do not possess the right to copy, adapt, or distribute derivative GTA source code, or the audiovisual elements of the Games,…

Isn't Fair Use a concept that applies just in the United States? There might be similar concepts in other countries, but they're not equivalent.

> they're not equivalent

They are not, but AFAIK these concepts are somewhat close, at least on the high level.

The developers were not distributing the game, the game engine they made is useless without the assets. The developers probably obtained their copies of the games legally. AFAIK, their primary motivation was to make the game work better on modern computers (that’s why the rendering patches), and to make the game run on the platforms not supported by Rockstar such as ARM Linux on Raspberry Pi. The laws regulating reverse engineering often have exceptions for compatibility purpose. Most importantly, the developers have not profited from their work, they did it for fun.

Re: Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

#25

Post by rhn_mk1 »

klodolph wrote: post #14
Const-me wrote: post #7

Probably someone in the upper management of take-two had the idea of downsizing their legal department. That department have decided to demonstrate how incredibly useful they are, by suing a few people from Germany, New Zealand, Turkey, and United Kingdom. > Defendants are well aware that they do not possess the right to copy, adapt, or distribute derivative GTA source code, or the audiovisual elements of the Games,…

> I think the opposite is true, what they did was fair use. The defendants are outside US, pretty sure everything they did was 100% legal in their jurisdictions. There's just no way that it's fair use to distribute a decompiled copy of a game. Reverse engineering and decompiling are generally legal, but they don't strip away copyrights from the code. Think about it this way... compiling source code does not change wh…

It's not a decompiled copy. A decompiled copy is not useful for anything, as it would have to be recompiled. State of the art decompiles produce incomprehensible garbage, rarely even possible to compile.

In such projects, what's distributed is a recreation of the compiled form of the original software, bearing little resemblance to what the original creators worked on. In terms of work and creativity involved, it's more like watching a movie, summarizing the plot, and then plugging back the holes to make another movie that has the same feel.

I don't know about fair use, but if the defendants are not in the US, then the concept of fair use is not even necessarily in play.

Re: Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

#26

Post by sam0x17 »

klodolph wrote: post #22
dasKrokodil wrote: post #8

Man, regardless of who is in the right legally, I wish these big corporations had a better sense of humor and would understand and appreciate that the people who go to these lengths to understand and recreate the original code aren't their enemies, but their biggest fans.

They make money from having lots of customers, not from having a few obsessed fans. I’ve heard this argument before but the kind of people who are obsessed enough to reverse-engineer old games don’t necessarily even play new games. They’re often fans of the old games and don’t play new games, or they’re people who are interested in reverse engineering. You can release a remaster of an old game, but any reverse-engine…

That said, using any of these mods requires a valid GTA V license, so OP is right, by killing this project, they are killing their own sales.

Re: Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

#27

Post by klodolph »

Const-me wrote: post #21
klodolph wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the opposite is true, what they did was fair use. The defendants are outside US, pretty sure everything they did was 100% legal in their jurisdictions. There's just no way that it's fair use to distribute a decompiled copy of a game. Reverse engineering and decompiling are generally legal, but they don't strip away copyrights from the code. Think about it this way... compiling source code does not change wh…

> no way that it's fair use to distribute a decompiled copy of a game That’s not what these people did. A source code of a re-implementation of a game engine is not a copy of the game. I have compiled and tested that thing, but it was only legal for me to do so because I had the original one bought on Steam. > I could get sued by the composer Right. “The great thing about this country is you can sue anyone for pretty…

> That’s not what these people did.

Yes, it is. They decompiled it with tools like IDA Pro and Ghidra, and then they cleaned up and refactored the results.

> ... but it was only legal for me to do so because I had the original one bought on Steam.

Whether it's legal for you to run the program is a separate issue. The fact is: the code is distributed to anyone who can access GitHub, not only people who have legitimate copies of GTA3.

> “The great thing about this country is you can sue anyone for pretty much anything, and you probably win.

It should have been clear that I was saying that the composer would have legal grounds to sue and win.

Re: Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

#28

Post by Hamuko »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #25
klodolph wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the opposite is true, what they did was fair use. The defendants are outside US, pretty sure everything they did was 100% legal in their jurisdictions. There's just no way that it's fair use to distribute a decompiled copy of a game. Reverse engineering and decompiling are generally legal, but they don't strip away copyrights from the code. Think about it this way... compiling source code does not change wh…

It's not a decompiled copy. A decompiled copy is not useful for anything, as it would have to be recompiled. State of the art decompiles produce incomprehensible garbage, rarely even possible to compile. In such projects, what's distributed is a recreation of the compiled form of the original software, bearing little resemblance to what the original creators worked on. In terms of work and creativity involved, it's m…

>I don't know about fair use, but if the defendants are not in the US, then the concept of fair use is not even necessarily in play.

The suit is filed in California so I imagine that Fair Use, and the rest of the US legal code, is in play.

Re: Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

#29

Post by Crosseye_Jack »

klodolph wrote: post #22
dasKrokodil wrote: post #8

Man, regardless of who is in the right legally, I wish these big corporations had a better sense of humor and would understand and appreciate that the people who go to these lengths to understand and recreate the original code aren't their enemies, but their biggest fans.

They make money from having lots of customers, not from having a few obsessed fans. I’ve heard this argument before but the kind of people who are obsessed enough to reverse-engineer old games don’t necessarily even play new games. They’re often fans of the old games and don’t play new games, or they’re people who are interested in reverse engineering. You can release a remaster of an old game, but any reverse-engine…

> You can release a remaster of an old game, but any reverse-engineered version would be competing with it.

The Console HD (Well 720p) remasters of the 3D GTAs don't even compete with the original versions with mods imo :-P.

They are the ported from the mobile ports of the games, have tons of bugs (Edit: some of the bugs on the 360 stem from RROD issues on consoles that have just not yet RROD'ed), break many of the game mechanics and redender models like trash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhVdb4K1M-M (Note: I know you are on about how mods / RE projects compete with offical releases from a product standpoint, not a quality standpoint. Just wanted to say that RS had their chance to improve the longevity of the older 3D titles and they fucked it up)

Re: Take-Two Sues Enthusiasts Behind GTA Fan Projects Re3 and ReVC

#30

Post by cinntaile »

m-p-3 wrote: post #17
eurasiantiger wrote: post #13

I played a pirate copy of VC when I was a poor student and loved the game. Hearing of ReVC just now made me consider buying it, a 20 year old game. Take-Twos belligerent approach just killed that consideration. They have fans both hardcore enough to restore the game and loving enough to provide the restored version to others, and they choose to slap them with a lawsuit over a 20 year old game? We the people don’t hav…

I suspect that they plan to rerelease or remaster the game, and having a fan project being of higher quality than their own product would undercut their sales expectations.

They're coming this fall. https://kotaku.com/the-gta-remastered-trilogy-appears-to-be-...
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