Take-Two Interactive Settles Lawsuit With GTA Reverse-Engineering Project Modders

The notorious lawsuit by Take-Two Interactive targeting modders that spanned over the course of two years has reached its end. The GTA owner has settled the legal battle with the Grand Theft Auto reverse-engineering mods team. The group was responsible for reverse-engineering both GTA Vice City and GTA 3, arguing that the mods fell under fair use. However, that was not the case, and the huge company was quick to strike hard on the mods.

NEW: In 2021, Take-Two Interactive initiated legal action against a team of mod developers who had developed a project that involved reverse engineering Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto III, shortly after the developers launched a counter strike on GitHub.

As of… pic.twitter.com/mP5wytTcV4

— Ben (@videotech_) April 4, 2023

Both parties filed an agreement of dismissal with the Northern District of California Court on April 3rd, 2023, to close the lawsuit for good. However, many details, such as the agreed-upon terms, still remain a lingering mystery. We may never discover the exact specifics if the terms are protected under a non-disclosure agreement.

Moreover, the team of reverse-engineering project developers is not out of murky waters yet. Rockstar’s parent company is still hunting down the “remaining unnamed defendants” that take part in developing similar mods in the community. On the other hand, both parties will still bear the costs, like the legal fees. All the financial incentives in the legal process will drain the pockets of the modding team by a giant margin.

Take-Two Interactive filed the lawsuit two years ago after GTA modders were able to reverse engineer Grand Theft Auto Vice City And 3 to create reVC and re3, respectively. It initially caused the giant conglomerate to strike the team with a DMCA takedown on GitHub to claim copyright infringement. However, things escalated after modders argued otherwise in defense, and the mods were online once again.

The code in this repo was developed by reverse engineering object code that is not contained in this repo. We believe that any code in this repo that is similar to code or other content owned by Take-Two is either unprotected by copyright or is permitted under fair use,” said the team behind the mod.

The move led Take-Two Interactive to sue the creators, causing the mods to be purged permanently this time. The legal battles continued behind the scenes until both parties agreed to settle the lawsuit out of court in recent development. The parent company was quick to take action because of the mods allegedly using the source code of the original classic titles. 

The mods were also rumored to have been targeted back in 2021 because they released around the same time as the original GTA: Trilogy remasters. The reVC and re3 mods were advanced tools that enhanced the original GTA classics’ experience to a whole new level by adding a few modern features and improvements. The alluring mods added controller compatibility, bug fixes, wide-screen support, and more.

Take-Two has always adopted an offensive strategy with the modding community, often taking legal action against some immersive mods. It is well-renowned for being among the leading companies in the gaming industry for having strict rules around modding. For instance, the highly popular Grand Theft Auto IV Definitive edition mod was also issued a takedown, causing it to disappear from the internet for the most part.

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