GitHub has re-blocked the RE3 project repository and the 861 fork with its contents following a new complaint from Take-Two Interactive, which owns the intellectual property associated with GTA III and GTA Vice City.
Recall that the re3 project carried out work on reverse engineering of the source codes of GTA III and GTA Vice City, released about 20 years ago. The published code was ready to assemble a fully working game, using game resource files that were proposed to be extracted from their licensed copy of GTA III. The code restoration project was launched in 2018 with the goal of fixing some bugs, expanding opportunities for mod developers, and conducting experiments to study and replace physics simulation algorithms. RE3 included porting to Linux, FreeBSD and ARM systems, added support for OpenGL, provided audio output via OpenAL, added additional debugging tools, implemented a rotating camera, added support for XInput, expanded support for peripheral devices, and provided output scaling to widescreen screens, a map and additional options have been added to the menu.
In February 2021, GitHub already blocked access to the RE3 repository after Take-Two Interactive reported a violation of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The developers of the RE3 project did not agree with the blocking and sent a counterclaim, after consideration of which GitHub stopped blocking. In response, Take-Two Interactive began legal proceedings in which it demanded to stop distributing the source code of the RE3 project and to pay compensation to cover damages from copyright infringement.
It is the opinion of Take-Two Interactive that the files placed in the repository not only contain derived source code that allows you to run the game without the original executable files, but also include components from the original games, such as text, character dialogue and some game resources, as well as links to full installation builds of re3, which, in the presence of game resources from the original game, allow you to completely recreate the gameplay. Take-Two Interactive insists that by copying, adapting and distributing the code and resources associated with these games, the developers have intentionally violated the intellectual property of Take-Two Interactive.
The RE3 developers believe that the code they have created is either not subject to the law that defines intellectual property rights, or belongs to the category of fair use (fair use), allowing the creation of compatible functional analogues, since the project is developed on the basis of reverse engineering and the repository contains only source code created by project members. Object files, on the basis of which the game functionality was recreated, were not placed in the repository. Fair use is also evidenced by the non-commercial nature of the project, the main purpose of which is not to distribute unlicensed copies of someone else's intellectual property, but to allow fans to continue playing old versions of GTA, fix bugs and ensure work on new platforms.
Source: opennet.ru