There has been a major update in the ongoing legal battle between Take-Two Interactive (Rockstar Games’ parent company) and a group of GTA fans who modded older titles in the series. It appears the lawsuit is coming to an end after 18 months.
What led to this lawsuit?
We first reported on this case back in September 2021 when Take-Two filed a civil action lawsuit against 5 individuals. Originally, this group of fans filed a counterclaim on GitHub a few weeks after Take-Two Interactive sent a takedown notice removal of the reverse engineering projects for GTA III and GTA Vice City.
This cause of action comes after the group filed a counterclaim on GitHub weeks after Take-Two sent a takedown notice for a full removal of the reverse engineering projects for GTA III and GTA Vice City. The group’s argument was that they were not using any infringing code and were let to believe the project was legal. Take-Two were supposed to respond to the group’s counterclaim but never made one so GitHub reinstated the project. Take-Two took this further launching a lawsuit against them as per this filing. The some members of the GTA community have been upset by this particularly because GTA 3 and Vice City are hard to get up and running on more recent videos of Windows. They require mods and time to sort out. These reverse engineered versions made the games far more playable. We wrote a lengthy article detailing why Take-Two should not go after community members with such hostile tactics.
The end is near?
According to a new filing in this lawsuit, both Take-Two Interactive and the group of GTA modders have “settled in principle” and are currently “finalizing the settlement” due to happen within the next 30 days. This means there won’t be any criminal charges for the group behind the reverse engineering projects but are likely facing some financial charge without it going to the jury. What the settlement agreement will be likely will never become public knowledge.
The team claim they were not making money of these reverse engineering projects and did not know Rockstar, Take-Two and Grove Street Games were to release the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition when they started their work. Take-Two began issuing takedowns for mods related to the three classic GTA games ahead of the reveal and release of the flawed trilogy remaster.
If there is another update to this case we shall report on it so stay tuned to RockstarINTEL.
5 Comments
Fokk Take-Two, may Rockstar break away from them once and for all.
Hi
His
I’m just feeling like rooting for the modders who can do what Rockstar can’t do to their old GTA games to win.
Wow u guys are fighting over a game u guys need to grow up its only a game