Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

torrentfreak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 93 posts

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

#11

Post by CannisterFlux »

bsksi wrote: post #5
CannisterFlux wrote: post #2

Do the enthusiast devs have a legal leg to stand on? The repositories cited - like the re3 one on github - don't contain the original GTA3 game assets. It's all "new" code that runs the original game assets, or emulation/simulation wrappers to get OpenGL or DirectX to function like an old PS2 renderer. To play the re3 version of the game, you need the original GTA3 game for PC. To me, it seems more like SCUMM VM or a…

It's reverse engineered using IDA and such. I think even the class/functions names are the same since the developer forgot to strip one of the binaries. As much as I support this kind of project, I would say they are legally screwed. But they already knew that when they started.

Yeah, sounds that way, if it's almost literally the same code rejiggered to build as C. A proper clean-room rewrite effort would be so much slower. You'd need one guy in IDA decompiling/understanding, then explaining the design of how it should work to read and render the assets etc without actually writing the code to do that, and someone different reading the spec and implementing it without touching the original code at all. Or a single person doing both halves but being almost impossibly strict about it.

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

#12

Post by carl_dr »

flatiron wrote: post #3
CannisterFlux wrote: post #2

Do the enthusiast devs have a legal leg to stand on? The repositories cited - like the re3 one on github - don't contain the original GTA3 game assets. It's all "new" code that runs the original game assets, or emulation/simulation wrappers to get OpenGL or DirectX to function like an old PS2 renderer. To play the re3 version of the game, you need the original GTA3 game for PC. To me, it seems more like SCUMM VM or a…

It’s tricky (obviously) but the code itself is certainly protected. If they decompiled the code and just cleaned it up it’s very grey. If they simply studied it’s workings and coded it fresh that’s pretty clearly not infringing. But if take-two can point at chunks of code that’s exactly the same they have a bit of a leg. Mainly though they know they won’t fight back so why not just sue? They have nothing to lose.

> If they decompiled the code and just cleaned it up it’s very grey.

From the filed complaint, Take-Two quote one of the developers :

> GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but over the last 10 or so years decompilers have appeared that help with this process. . . . So what we typically do is work with the output of the decompiler and massage it back into readable C++

And although this probably has no relevance from a legal standpoint, but sounds pretty bad in the context of the complaint, from right at the bottom of https://github.com/GTAmodding/re3/blob/master/CODING_STYLE.m... :

> Generally, try to make the code look as if R* could have written it

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

#13

Post by eurasiantiger »

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 have the right to distribute copyrighted files, but we do have a right to repair broken software, just like we have the right to repair other things we own, and we certainly have a right to help others do the same.

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

#14

Post by klodolph »

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 who has the copyright on the code. Decompiling source code does not change it either. Cleaning up the output from IDA or Ghidra does not magically strip away copyright.

If I went to a Broadway show and sat down with a pad of staff paper so I could transcribe all the songs, and then put my transcriptions up on GitHub, I could get sued by the composer and the composer would win.

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

#15

Post by londons_explore »

carl_dr wrote: post #12
flatiron wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s tricky (obviously) but the code itself is certainly protected. If they decompiled the code and just cleaned it up it’s very grey. If they simply studied it’s workings and coded it fresh that’s pretty clearly not infringing. But if take-two can point at chunks of code that’s exactly the same they have a bit of a leg. Mainly though they know they won’t fight back so why not just sue? They have nothing to lose.

> If they decompiled the code and just cleaned it up it’s very grey. From the filed complaint, Take-Two quote one of the developers : > GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but over the last 10…

So in most jurisdictions, what they did was clearly copyright infringement.

It's a shame a simple take-down request wasn't sent (and complied with) first...

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

#16

Post by bogwog »

danhor wrote: post #4
CannisterFlux wrote: post #2

Do the enthusiast devs have a legal leg to stand on? The repositories cited - like the re3 one on github - don't contain the original GTA3 game assets. It's all "new" code that runs the original game assets, or emulation/simulation wrappers to get OpenGL or DirectX to function like an old PS2 renderer. To play the re3 version of the game, you need the original GTA3 game for PC. To me, it seems more like SCUMM VM or a…

My understanding is that the code is directly reverse engineered/decompiled from the original code, so while it doesn't contain game assets, it's based on (compiled) code copyrighted by Take-Two.

It'd be interesting to see if this actually goes to court, because decompiled code is technically new code, not the original. Decompilers can't retrieve the original code written by Rockstar devs, but it can write new code that behaves like it. Is that a derivative work? If a person were to do that by hand, I think most people would say it's fair use.

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

#17

Post by m-p-3 »

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.

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

#18

Post by carl_dr »

bogwog wrote: post #16
danhor wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the code is directly reverse engineered/decompiled from the original code, so while it doesn't contain game assets, it's based on (compiled) code copyrighted by Take-Two.

It'd be interesting to see if this actually goes to court, because decompiled code is technically new code, not the original. Decompilers can't retrieve the original code written by Rockstar devs, but it can write new code that behaves like it. Is that a derivative work? If a person were to do that by hand, I think most people would say it's fair use.

From the filed complaint, Take-Two quote one of the developers :

> GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but over the last 10 or so years decompilers have appeared that help with this process. . . . So what we typically do is work with the output of the decompiler and massage it back into readable C++

I know, as a software developer, I don’t consider that fair use, and I very much doubt any reasonable person would either.

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

#19

Post by carl_dr »

londons_explore wrote: post #15
carl_dr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they decompiled the code and just cleaned it up it’s very grey. From the filed complaint, Take-Two quote one of the developers : > GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but over the last 10…

So in most jurisdictions, what they did was clearly copyright infringement. It's a shame a simple take-down request wasn't sent (and complied with) first...

That’s on the developers. From TFA :

> The lawsuit says that after the company filed a DMCA takedown notice to remove the projects from Github, the defendants filed a bad faith counter notice to have the content reinstated, thus triggering this copyright infringement lawsuit.

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

#20

Post by duckmysick »

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.
Post reply on HN