Back in February 19th, 2021, Take-Two sent DMCA notices to the reverse engineered projects re3 and reVC, (hosted on GitHub). After the takedowns, the project leaders filed a counter-claim, effectively restoring the projects and their whole repositories.

Today, September 2nd, 2021, Take-Two has taken legal action in the state of California, USA, claiming the projects and whole repositories are infringing on the copyrights of their games, Grad Theft Auto III & Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
Not only is Take-Two suing the main repositories, but also against forks and derivative work (and the devs behind them) that sent the counter-claim back in February, like the PS Vita & Nintendo Switch forks.

The resolution of this case might be one of the biggest legal battles of recent years in terms of gaming, homebrew, hacking and reverse engineering, as other projects that have flourished under reverse engineered premises could be affected in the event of Take-Two winning the case.

Source

 

[Dr_Faustus]

in all honesty i hope they are released, i would love some gta trilogy remastered for old times sake and i will buy it if the rumors are true.

While true, lets hope more however that if it is true that its not a Warcraft 3 Reforged level disaster of a remastering. That will really give these mods the far edge over the official remasters if that is indeed the case.

 

[jurassicplayer]

Just shuffled through a couple of the points on the claim. This is abysmal.

Spoiler

I almost wouldn't be surprised if Take-Two was trying to take down re3/reVC just to take "derivative source code" and use it.

 

[SANIC]

​

The resolution of this case might be one of the biggest legal battles of this decade in terms of gaming, homebrew, hacking and reverse engineering, as other projects that have flourished under reverse engineered premises could be affected in the event of Take-Two winning the case.

Woah we're only one year into the decade, that seems kind of steep.

 

[FAST6191]

Its already well established that clean room reverse engineering is not illegal and has been since IBM sued Compaq in the 70s for reverse engineering the IBM PC Bios and creating their own clone of it, IBM lost, badly. So badly it almost caused them to collapse.

Which would be fine if this was a clean room procedure governed project. It wasn't, they even apparently broadcast themselves in a video doing not that if the videos earlier in the thread are anything to go by, and I doubt they would have got it compiling as well as it does (1:1 but for their additions) via clean room techniques this century.

this is like composing a song and then some other song writer suing you because you used the same chords and notes. melody/rhythm/lyrics/everything else all different, just same notes/chords.

No this is more akin to you buying a CD, transcribing all the notes, vocals and selling the sheet music as sort of your own project (or at least one not concerned by the original artist), and possibly slipping in a few samples as well if the other claims are anything to go by.

i sincerely hope this rules in favor of the modders.
it's not infringing on copyright. we should be allowed to fix and improve games that are nearly 2 decades old.
besides, you still need the game purchased already (if you want the best experience, don't pirate... that shits unstable as hell with reverse engineering), so take-two STILL has money from the purchases.

I mean I am all for going back to statute of queen anne copyright term lengths rather than the nonsense we have today ( https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-in-the-public-domain-for-2021.580143/ https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2021/ ), indeed I would be thrilled to roll back to 1978 lengths where today we would instead be able to remix works from 1964 rather than 1925. Don't know that this is the place to argue for it though. If there were any software patents involved though then they might be expiring about now.
Equally fixing and improving games is different from disseminating a complete working copy of the source code derived from the original code. The former is if not legal (the Galoob vs Nintendo case speaking somewhat to this, as might the Blizzard Warcraft stuff) then something I have never seen troubled in any real capacity (there is what Tecmo Beach Volleyball stuff for the xbox ( https://www.theregister.com/2005/02/10/tecmo_sues_xbox_game_hackers/ https://www.theregister.com/2005/05/27/tecmo_drops_ninjahacker_suit/ ) and don't particularly expect to any time soon.
Take two/Rockstar still getting money for it is almost immaterial in this; copyright does allow you to dictate what is done with the works, outside of resale and the usual fair use factors of which this is neither from where I sit.

 

[wormdood]

The article posted correctly points out the US allows for broader exceptions in the use of decompilation. So in this particular case the US is more “relaxed” than the EU.

I’m not all that familiar with EU consumer protection laws, but EU warranty protection has nothing to do with whether decompilation is legal or not.

my comparison there was to illustrate the difference between a country thats laws allow you to modify technology that you purchase, even if it includes copyrighted software on it being the EU, and a country that spearheads copyright claims (thanks primarily to Disney/hollywood) being the USA. I say that to say that just because it would likely be deemed legal in the EU doesn't mean it would be deemed legal in the USA

But what do I know I'm not a lawyer or a judge just a guy with an opinion

 

[DarkCoffe64]

I'd TakeTwo shits on them.

 

[Soulsilve2010]

I almost wouldn't be surprised if Take-Two was trying to take down re3/reVC just to take "derivative source code" and use it.

Exactly what I was thinking,lazyness and greed go hand in hand when it comes to game companies.It's always been about money and nothing else.

 

[smf]

they chose option 2 which (IMO) was the VERY wrong choice.

The wrong choice was when re3 countered the DMCA take down. That was a get out of jail free card, T2 suing has no downside for them.

On or about April 8, 2021, Defendant Morra sent to GitHub a Section 512(g)(2)(b) counter notice, stating, under penalty of perjury, that the repository available at https://github.com/td512/re3 was removed and disabled by GitHub “as a result of a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.”

The repository wasn't removed because of a mistake and it wasn't removed because of a misidentification.

Its already well established that clean room reverse engineering is not illegal and has been since IBM sued Compaq in the 70s for reverse engineering the IBM PC Bios and creating their own clone of it, IBM lost, badly. So badly it almost caused them to collapse.

It is also established that re3 isn't clean room reverse engineering, they did it the illegal way.

my comparison there was to illustrate the difference between a country thats laws allow you to modify technology that you purchase, even if it includes copyrighted software on it being the EU, and a country that spearheads copyright claims (thanks primarily to Disney/hollywood) being the USA. I say that to say that just because it would likely be deemed legal in the EU doesn't mean it would be deemed legal in the USA

This would be illegal in the EU as well.

Woah we're only one year into the decade, that seems kind of steep.

It really was stupid of re3 to allow it to get his far, they should have just gone underground on the DMCA. There will now be legal certainty, which will mean that Nintendo are more likely to take down Mario64 etc.

Because there is really no way that T2 can lose, a court would have to unwind a lot of copyright law. Which you might want, but that isn't really how it works.

I almost wouldn't be surprised if Take-Two was trying to take down re3/reVC just to take "derivative source code" and use it.

If they wanted to be able to use the source code they would have contacted them to negotiate, it would have been much quicker and cheaper for T2.

 

[64bitmodels]

Take Two/Rockstar Games can piss up a flagpole

how the hell would that work????

 

[cashboxz01]

Why don't they invest that money into creating a new midnight club series game? It's quite lazy and stupid to milk out a title for over 20 years. buying the title once should entitle you to the rights on all platforms. As much as I hate the restrictions on Apple's App Store, the one thing I do like is that I don't have to buy the good games (ones without in-app purchases) on each new iPhone or iPad I get.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

The wrong choice was when re3 countered the DMCA take down. That was a get out of jail free card, T2 suing has no downside for them.

On or about April 8, 2021, Defendant Morra sent to GitHub a Section 512(g)(2)(b) counter notice, stating, under penalty of perjury, that the repository available at https://github.com/td512/re3 was removed and disabled by GitHub “as a result of a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.”

The repository wasn't removed because of a mistake and it wasn't removed because of a misidentification.



It is also established that re3 isn't clean room reverse engineering, they did it the illegal way.



This would be illegal in the EU as well.



It really was stupid of re3 to allow it to get his far, they should have just gone underground on the DMCA. There will now be legal certainty, which will mean that Nintendo are more likely to take down Mario64 etc.

Because there is really no way that T2 can lose, a court would have to unwind a lot of copyright law. Which you might want, but that isn't really how it works.



If they wanted to be able to use the source code they would have contacted them to negotiate, it would have been much quicker and cheaper for T2.

The only thing this might lead to is a version of GitHub on tor.

 

[64bitmodels]

Why don't they invest that money into creating a new midnight club series game? It's quite lazy and stupid to milk out a title for over 20 years. buying the title once should entitle you to the rights on all platforms. As much as I hate the restrictions on Apple's App Store, the one thing I do like is that I don't have to buy the good games (ones without in-app purchases) on each new iPhone or iPad I get.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



The only thing this might lead to is a version of GitHub on tor.

TBF GTA5 & GTA online has basically filled the midnight club hole- they have lots of open world racing content in those games. I don't LIKE GTA online, but it's there

 

[Kopimist]

Original games still need to be purchased for these unofficial ports to work. How is that piracy? If anything, its increasing sales of the original games.
This should be protected under the Fair Use Doctrine. What a douche move Take Two

 

[Zajumino]

Analogy time!

Note: This is supposed to explain fair use in a way I can understand.

Let's say I have bought some random painting and have it hanging in my room.
This painting comes with a set of lights which must be placed in a particular orientation for the painting to be visible.
Let us also consider the painting and the lights to be one piece of artwork.
But let's say I want to move to a different room.
Now, I literally have to wait forever for the artist to show up and move everything to the new room.

But let's say there are some lights (lets call them Vta Lights, or VL for short) that make the painting visible regardless of where you put them.
If VL were exactly the same as the original ones the artist could say "hey those are my lights; you just copied them!"
But if they were designed only to copy the function of the original lights (making the painting appear) you could say "look man, I had to 'cause you were so slow."

Here's where it gets tricky.
What if you took apart the original lights to find out how they worked ("functional principles")?
If it was only for that (and nothing else) you should be okay, since any similarities will probably* be considered "external considerations" or "expression necessarily incident to the idea."
But if you copied anything else that was unrelated to the function of VL, then you are in trouble, since that would be protected by copyright as an "expression."
The problem is, the functional aspects and everything else might be all jumbled up together, which makes it really hard to reverse engineer completely safely.
But based on some court cases (Atari v. N, Sega v. Accolade, Sony v. whoever) the court seems to be fairly lenient unless it's obvious you just copied it directly.

Also, if the artist patented his lights, you're screwed.

* I ain't no lawyer, so this might not be true, plus some of this stuff would be argued about anyways. Actually, all of this might not even make sense.

Bad grammar alert: "I" and "you" are interchangeable.

 

[Sheimi]

It is also established that re3 isn't clean room reverse engineering, they did it the illegal way.

Could you elaborate please?

 

[Zajumino]

I just read through the source document, and I noticed that nowhere does it mention reverse engineering of any kind (except for in quotes).

Could you elaborate please?

I can try to elaborate a bit, since I am here already.

What they did was decompile the machine code, also known as object code. This gives them a rough idea of how the program works, which enables them to more easily write their own program that does essentially the same thing as the original.

This is in contrast to "clean room" or "black box" reverse engineering, which involves a lot of educated guessing and testing (it's usually harder) to figure out how something works.

The second is pretty solidly legal, while the first is only legal under some circumstances.

 

[Zajumino]

As to what these circumstances are, there is this thing called fair use and it is sort of ambiguous, especially with regards to computer programs.

This is how they decided what fair use was in Sega v. Accolade:

"... disassembly of copyrighted object code is, as a matter of law, a fair use of the copyrighted work if such disassembly provides the only means of access to those [functional] elements of the code that are not protected by copyright and the copier has a legitimate reason for seeking such access."

https://openjurist.org/977/f2d/1510

 

[Guggimon]

I hope T2 will lose this and if they win.... I hope the whole world will boycott T2 for doing an absolute dickmove...

 

[VinsCool]

If even Nintendo, as lawsuit happy as they are, were unable to get Mario 64 down, it's unlikely the reverse engineered GTA games will be taken down.
They can sue as much as they want, reverse engineering is legal as far as I know, they can only be in trouble if they include full original assets, otherwise, there's nothing to claim.

 

[smf]

Could you elaborate please?

Clean room is where someone reads the code and writes a high level description of what the function does, so that it can be implemented by someone else.

They live streamed themselves using tools that converted the binary to pseudocode that is then copy and pasted and changed to make it compile as c++.

As to what these circumstances are, there is this thing called fair use and it is sort of ambiguous, especially with regards to computer programs.

This is how they decided what fair use was in Sega v. Accolade:

"... disassembly of copyrighted object code is, as a matter of law, a fair use of the copyrighted work if such disassembly provides the only means of access to those [functional] elements of the code that are not protected by copyright and the copier has a legitimate reason for seeking such access."

https://openjurist.org/977/f2d/1510

That is for a small piece of code at the start of the game that is purely for allowing them to run their own game on a platform.

This is not the same situation & I'm not sure if the court would come to the same decision today, as the DMCA has been introduced since then.

I just read through the source document, and I noticed that nowhere does it mention reverse engineering of any kind (except for in quotes).

I think that is because re3 use the term, but I would say they misused it. Reverse engineering just means you figure out how it works, not duplicating and distributing it.

Wanna buy a reverse engineered rolex watch? It's legal, I reverse engineered it myself.

If even Nintendo, as lawsuit happy as they are, were unable to get Mario 64 down

They seem to have successfully gotten some binaries taken down. However they don't seem to have tried to get the source code taken down. If T2 are successful then I would expect Nintendo to follow.

 

[Zajumino]

That is for a small piece of code at the start of the game that is purely for allowing them to run their own game on a platform.

This is not the same situation & I'm not sure if the court would come to the same decision today, as the DMCA has been introduced since then.

The principle still applies, as it did in Sony v. Accolade.

"The question then becomes whether the methods by which Connectix reverse-engineered the Sony BIOS were necessary to gain access to the unprotected functional elements within the program."

And the same applies to this case as well. For example, you could argue the following:
The copying involved in reverse engineering was not "necessary" because you can see what it does by playing the game (or some other method). In other words, maybe they could have figured it out without decompilation.
Therefore, it is not fair use.
(Note that this would have to apply to every part of the game for it to work, and since I am not familiar with the game or its source code, I wouldn't know.)

Basically, the entire case hinges on how to separate the "functional" parts of the program from the "expression" part, and that is why the results of these kinds of cases are not easily predictable and are unlikely to be pursued.

Disclaimer: All of my knowledge on this subject has been gathered in the past few hours.

I think that is because re3 use the term, but I would say they misused it. Reverse engineering just means you figure out how it works, not duplicating and distributing it.

Wanna buy a reverse engineered rolex watch? It's legal, I reverse engineered it myself.

But there is a difference (legal term used: transformative). The reverse engineered stuff is not exactly the same (probably) and has been compiled for other systems. If you wanted to differentiate them further then you would have to do a side by side comparison with the original source.

What you are saying is sort of like saying any watch you make while referencing a rolex is a duplicate because they all tell time.

A comparison with Sony v. Accolade might apply here. The Digital Station or whatever they called it performed roughly the same function as a real PS, yet the only thing Sony even went after them for was the BIOS (although you can't really decompile hardware, but that isn't the point here). A precedent established in Sega and strengthened in Sony was that intermediate copying is of little weight, unless the final product contains infringing material. And determining what is infringing material and what isn't is hard, like mentioned earlier.