Take-Two Interactive, which owns the intellectual property associated with GTA III and GTA Vice City, has filed a lawsuit against the developers of the RE3 project, which develops a resource-compatible clone of GTA III and GTA VC, created by reverse engineering the original games. Take-Two Interactive requires the defendant to stop distributing the source code for the RE3 project and all related materials, as well as provide a report on the number of downloads of products that infringe the company's intellectual property, and pay compensation covering damages from copyright infringement.
For the RE3 project, a lawsuit is the worst-case scenario after their GitHub repository is unlocked. In February, Take-Two Interactive secured a repository lock and 232 forks of the RE3 project from GitHub by submitting a complaint about violation of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The developers disagreed with the arguments of Take-Two Interactive and filed a counterclaim, after which GitHub removed the block. Filing a counterclaim was fraught with the risk that, having exhausted the possibilities for an amicable settlement of the conflict, Take-Two Interactive could escalate the proceedings in court.
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. According to the authors of RE3, their project does not harm Take-Two Interactive, but stimulates demand and contributes to the growth of sales of original games, since using the RE3 code requires the user to have resources from the original game.
According to the lawsuit filed by Take-Two Interactive, 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 assets. The repository also contains links to full installation builds of re3, which, with the presence of game resources from the original game, allow you to completely recreate the gameplay, which, with the exception of certain little things, is no different from the original games.
Take-Two Interactive owns the exclusive rights to reproduce, publicly perform, distribute, display and adapt GTA III and GTA VC. According to the plaintiff, by copying, adapting and distributing the code and resources associated with these games, the developers intentionally violated the intellectual property of Take-Two Interactive and should compensate for the damage caused (it is assumed that users downloaded a free analogue instead of buying the original games). The exact amount of compensation is proposed to be determined in court, but one of the options is 150 thousand dollars + legal costs. The defendants are developers Angelo Papenhoff (aap), Theo Morra, Eray Orçunus and Adrian Graber.
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 aim of fixing some bugs, expanding the possibilities for modders, and experimenting with studying and replacing physics simulation algorithms. In particular, RE3 ported to Linux, FreeBSD and ARM systems, added support for OpenGL, provided sound output through OpenAL, added additional debugging tools, implemented a rotating camera, added support for XInput, expanded support for peripherals, provided output scaling to widescreen screens, a map and additional options have been added to the menu.
Source: opennet.ru