Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar Games’ parent company, has filed a lawsuit against the team that reversed engineered Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto Vice City for their Re3 project.
In the lawsuit, it’s noted that the team violated the company’s EULA, which forbids people from reverse engineering the games. Additionally, the Re3 project, which is being developed by reverse engineering these two classic games, adds new cheats to them, which is also forbidden by the EULA. The filing can be checked out in full here.
Defendants’ conduct is knowing, willful, and deliberate. Defendants are well
aware that they do not possess the right to copy, adapt, or distribute derivative GTA source code, or the audiovisual elements of the Games, and that doing so constitutes copyright infringement. Defendant Angelo Papenhoff even stated publicly that he was “very much worried” about TakeTwo’s discovery of the re3 and reVC projects. And, when Take-Two attempted to remove Defendants’ infringing source code from the Internet, at least three Defendants (acting in at least one instance with other Defendants’ participation and direction) knowingly filed bad faith counter notifications that materially misrepresented the legality of their content, apparently claiming that because they allegedly “reverse engineered” the Games’ source code, they somehow cannot be liable for copyright infringement. Yet while making this claim, Defendants also have bragged that their derivative versions of the Games are functionally and visually identical to the originals, and have even suggested they be used for unauthorized “modding purposes.” As such, Defendants’ software plainly infringes Take-Two’s exclusive rights to copy, adapt, and distribute the Games.
Take-Two Interactive taking action on this matter may be related to the rumored new Grand Theft Auto Trilogy, which will supposedly include Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. The publisher did hint at some remasters or remakes coming from them in 2022, so it’s likely that these classic open-world game will make their debut in the coming months on modern hardware.
Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games released the original Grand Theft Auto Trilogy back in 2005. The compilation is currently playable on PlayStation 4
GTA: The Trilogy. All three games in the epic saga are here together: GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas.
Experience GTA: The Trilogy for PS2 with full 1080p up-rendering and enhanced features such as Trophies, Shareplay, Remote Play, Activity Feeds and Second Screen support for game manuals with PS Vita or PS App.
