Remember recently we had a release of the reverse-engineered GTA III and Vice City code that worked well on Linux? Which was then promptly taken down by a DMCA notice? Well, it's back.
Not the original mind you, one of the forks on GitHub has returned as the forker issued a DMCA Counter Notice and intends to actually fight it. According to TorrentFreak, New Zealand-based developer named Theo is taking a stand against this DMCA behaviour and has managed to get GitHub to restore their fork.
"It would appear that the code in the re3 repo is reverse engineered, not a straight decompilation. I believe Take-Two’s claim to be wholly incorrect if this is the case, since the code may be functionally identical, but not exactly identical, they hold no claim to the code. I do not agree with how Take-Two handles events like this," Theo adds, referencing an earlier debacle when Take-Two targeted the OpenIV modding tool. "Taking down code that does not belong to them is abhorrent."
This isn't GitHub doing either side any favours though, this is of course as a result of Theo directly taking a stand as per the DMCA rules which state it needs to be put back in 10-14 days once a counter notice has been received so GitHub are just following the rules here.
Honestly it amazes me companies, bigger ones especially, don't see how these projects can benefit them and instead send the lawyers. You still need to legally own each game, so it can even help boost sales and gain a renewed interest in the classics without Take-Two needing to lift a finger. So far, no reply from Take-Two on it so it might even remain online this time around.
Find it on GitHub.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: Whitewolfe80Quoting: hardpenguinBrave soul, I hope they will prevail.
He wont he may win and they may say okay keep your code up but remove all of our assets from the game which we do own
Assets are not included in the codebase. As Liam says in the article, you need to own the game or this engine is useless.
Perhaps.
ElectricPrism May 12, 2021
It's up to the reader to not make inferences based on limited information (We all do it sometimes). This is a good example of why Critical Thinking is so important & reeling in those "leaps of faith" to "fill in the gaps" of what we do and do not know.
FTA -- Props to this Kiwi for educating himself on the laws used against him and using those same laws to fight back. Education & Tenacity are powerful tools to be reckoned with.
QuoteHonestly it amazes me companies, bigger ones especially, don't see how these projects can benefit them and instead send the lawyers.Agreed but I wonder if this is not happening the other way around, aka this is 100% the lawyers and the company is not involved at all.
Lots of publishers outsource IP management like this to external law firms who then act on their behalf filing DMCA take downs left and right without consulting the publisher before.
Not to mention that in a behemoth like T2 there are probably zero low level people that can even act in cases like this and some small open source project for an "obsolete" old game will not reach the people at the top unless they themselves are avid gamers and very interested in their own products, most of them are just economists and/or lawyers anyway.
Perkeleen_Vittupää May 12, 2021
Quoting: DuncIf they had any sense, they'd encourage these projects and package the new engine with future sales of the games.
That's right! But as some wiser people have pressed all along, investigating this "civilized" world model we live in now: "It's not so much about the money. It's about CONTROL."
Quoting: Whitewolfe80Quoting: ZlopezI wonder myself why the companies owning licenses to some games just doesn't let fans to create their own games.
Recently I found out that the Ultima series licence is owned by EA and this is the reason why anything new within series can't be published.
Another case I saw recently was stopping development on really great fan project of 4X game in the universe of Warhammer 40k, because developer didn't bought the license from Games Workshop.
At least we can see which company is more about money than doing great games.
Yes but games workshop legitmately own everything warhammer and they have licenced drek before i guess they are now picky about what comes out also they do deserve payment if you plan to make your game based on their ip which they spent money developing.
I would say that this is sad, especially in cases when they don't need to invest anything and their ip gets a good advertisement. I guess that their main profit is still from tabletop and books.
wvstolzing May 13, 2021
Quoting: TermyQuoteHonestly it amazes me companies, bigger ones especially, don't see how these projects can benefit them and instead send the lawyers
yeah, i really don't get how dense you have to be to decide "i'd rather take a shitstorm and damage my reputation with the fanbase instead of free advertisement to keep the IP relevant and maybe even some sales from very old games"...
These people are usually motivated by maximizing their short-term gains; but here what's at stake seems to be something fundamental — which, I think, is to maintain the 'intellectual property' regime that prevails, & to make sure it doesn't get challenged.
I think the rampant *commodification* of knowledge is one of the greatest crises of our age; if they could, they'd turn every bit of cognitive advance (an explanation as to how things work in the natural world, an efficient algorithm, an elegant mathematical proof, and so on) into trade secrets. So they've gone from owning bits of 'IP' like the formula for Coca Cola, to wanting to own the chemical theory that would explain why the stuff inside Coca Cola reacts the way it does.
Last edited by wvstolzing on 13 May 2021 at 10:13 pm UTC
DrDickGind Jun 19, 2021
Luckly I cloned the repository when it was available and today i've managaed to compile the code for gta 3 and vice city for linux amd64. If someone is in need for the executables, send me a private message.
Last edited by DrDickGind on 19 June 2021 at 5:55 pm UTC
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