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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

#31

Post by klodolph »

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…

It's decompiled and cleaned up.

I have personally gone through the commit history of this project and read the source code. It is absolutely clear that this is based on the output of decompilers like IDA Pro and Ghidra. You can see how variables are not defined as ordinary variables, but as hard-coded addresses which are then cast to pointers of the appropriate type. The code is littered with unnecessary casts that are not typical of human programmers, but typical for how you get decompiled code to run.

Modern decompilers are a lot better than you might think. Additionally, old compilers produced code that is easier to decompile than you might think. But, here's a sample of code from the re3 repository in question:

    uint8  &CClock::ms_nGameClockHours = *(uint8*)0x95CDA6;
    uint8  &CClock::ms_nGameClockMinutes = *(uint8*)0x95CDC8;
    uint16 &CClock::ms_nGameClockSeconds = *(uint16*)0x95CC7C;
That does not look like code any human would write, if they were reimplementing a game. It looks like the code someone would write if they were cleaning up the output of a decompiler and assigning names to variables and functions which previously looked like "loc_95CC7C" or something similar. Once you figure out the purpose of a function or variable, you hit a button and rename it.

> 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.

It's like someone transcribing the screenplay for a movie. The stage directions are going to be different, but it's still the same movie.

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

#32

Post by Const-me »

klodolph wrote: post #27
Const-me wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> the composer would have legal grounds to sue and win

I wonder was that tested in a court? In a case where the person who transcribed the song has not profited in any way from that, neither selling the transcription, not selling ads on the web?

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

#33

Post by elliekelly »

Hamuko wrote: post #10

> As per legal requirements, Github complied with the takedown demand but, as TF noted at the time, the team behind the projects had the option of filing a DMCA counter-notice if it was confident that its work is permitted under copyright law. > After assessing its options, that’s exactly what the team did, leaving Take-Two just a couple of weeks to file a lawsuit to prevent the content reappearing on Github. When th…

> The company says that the counter notices sent by the defendants in response were not legitimate.

> “In at least three separate instances between April and June of 2021, Defendants Orçunus, Morra, and Graber submitted sworn counter notifications to GitHub claiming the takedown of the repositories was mistaken or otherwise not legitimate,” the lawsuit reads.

> “Take-Two is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges, that these counter notifications were made in bad faith, and knowingly and deliberately misrepresented to GitHub the contents of the re3 GitHub Repositories.”

It really isn’t fair to put all of this legalese in front of laypeople (and in this case, laypeople in other countries/legal systems) and then allow highly experienced corporate attorneys to nitpick their obviously inadequate understanding of the language and its implications.

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

#34

Post by Bishop_ »

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #29
klodolph wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

Porting the mobile port back to PC is one of my biggest complaints with remasters. Final Fantasy on PC went that route and I would honestly rather pay Square $15 for an emulated version then the releases we got.

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

#35

Post by mehlmao »

Bishop_ wrote: post #34
Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 g…

Porting the mobile port back to PC is one of my biggest complaints with remasters. Final Fantasy on PC went that route and I would honestly rather pay Square $15 for an emulated version then the releases we got.

The new 'pixel remaster' games Square is putting out have been great so far. Standardizing on a 16-bit sprite style, new music arrangements, and widescreen support. Only issue is the English font choice, but if you're on PC that's easy enough to fix.

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

#36

Post by philipov »

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.

Being an asshole should also undercut their sales expectations.

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

#37

Post by klodolph »

Const-me wrote: post #32
klodolph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> the composer would have legal grounds to sue and win I wonder was that tested in a court? In a case where the person who transcribed the song has not profited in any way from that, neither selling the transcription, not selling ads on the web?

> I wonder was that tested in a court?

Yes, over and over again I'm sure. I remember hearing about some specific cases involving Broadway composers but I can't remember the details. This is not some kind of weird edge case, it's an entire industry. You have people who write music, people who perform music, people who transcribe records, and then companies which sell books of transcriptions / arrangements. This is what most of the rock/pop music books at your local music store contain.

There's a market for people who want to learn to play The Beatles, so a skilled musician will listen to a Beatles record and transcribe all of the parts, an engraver will lay it out on the page, and a publishing company will negotiate with the rightsholders for a license.

You'll see many different versions of the same song, if you go down to the store. Some of the differences are due to different transcription choices, and other differences are simplifications or arrangements for different skill levels, different instruments, or other reasons. All of them are different, but the composer credit will be the same.

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

#38

Post by m-p-3 »

philipov wrote: post #36
m-p-3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Being an asshole should also undercut their sales expectations.

They probably accounted for that, and the loses from being an asshole were likely smaller on paper than the loses from a better fan remake.

That might change if it goes viral tho.

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

#40

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

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.

It's something I really appreciate about Sega's handling of Sonic IP: as long as you aren't trying to make money you can pretty much get away with anything. I think Sonic's continued popularity is in no small part due to this policy.
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