GTA modders behind re3 and reVC fire back in court

The ongoing saga of modders versus Take-Two continues on, after some people behind the Grand Theft Auto fan projects "re3" and "reVC" got their work taken down from GitHub and then sued.

With the two projects, the developers recreated the game engines used for Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City, which were done through reverse engineering. There was a bit of back and forth as Take-Two sent a DMCA claim to have the projects taken down, a counter-claim was filed that put both back up and then Take-Two formally sent in the lawyers with the lawsuit to get payments in damages.

As expected here, the developers in question who are in the firing line have decided to attempt to fight back as reported by TorrentFreak who shared the PDF. A lot of it is just plain outright denials of what Take-Two are accusing in their argument. The main defence is trying to get it "constituted fair use under the Copyright Act" and that any copyrighted material included was to "allow for interoperability of software and fixing 'bugs'" and also that it was "transformative use".

Part of the counter-argument might not hold as much weight now though, as it mentions "for video games released over fifteen years ago". Recently, Take-Two put out the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. As it turns out, it's a true hot mess of bugs. Still, they're not the same versions and sold separately so it likely can still count.

Continuing, the defence does clearly mention how anyone using it would need a copy of each game (the projects did not include the data files). To that end, the defence mentions how it would "not affect the market for the complained of software" and in fact "would positively affect the market for the complained of software" and goes on to mention how previously Take-Two "showcased" some mods and even "released portions of its software" to the devs of Multi Theft Auto.

What a shame, can you imagine what they could have achieved if they worked together?