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OpenIV discontinued | Take Two claims game modding "illegal"


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42 minutes ago, Starkka15 said:

I'm not trying for any tactics bro... Just trying to get a whole picture. Saying I'm trying to do one thing or another is an assumption gone too far...

It's not too far to assume that they couldn't open source it because it had some of Rockstars code, and thus being illegal to distribute or make open source. I'm not for or against anymore. I care about sp modding (as I've stated about starting sparkV). But I also like to piece things together... Also, that image is how it was on Twitter, I have no idea what the whole conversation looked like, as I didn't snippet that conversation...


I'm sorry, you're right, didn't mean to lash out. It's just that I'm starting to see this image pop up left and right, and I think it's undermining current efforts to establish a dialogue with Rockstar/Take Two by giving people the impression that their action was ultimately justified when that's not necessarily the case. 

 

Given the current context, it's easy to assume that he's talking about Rockstar's code, but it could be a number of other things - code taken without permission from other unrelated programs or projects, or even code he wrote himself on company time for his employer, which would be "illegal" to use in a personal project even if he's the author as it's technically company property... not that these situations would be ok, but they wouldn't be T2's problem.  It could also be that he made up the "illegal" story just to have an excuse not to share the code with that other guy (who can't seem to take "no" for an answer).

 

I do think that the person who first circulated that image has an agenda. Given that it's from a personal convo, it sounds like a grudge for not sharing the source code with them back then. By the way, the date on that convo (Feb 2015) predates the release of GTA V on PC... someone who doesn't notice that in the heat of the moment might think the convo took place in the last few days and is a smoking gun that validates T2's actions. 

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4 hours ago, willpv23 said:

 

Nothing changed in terms of the legality of modding. Google is not involved at all and most likely would not involve themselves in this. If anything, Take Two would abuse the content ID system to remove videos using mods, but I seriously doubt that would ever happen.

 

Something seriously needs to be cleared up: Take Two does not and cannot make laws. They did not make modding "illegal." No one will ever be arrested for modding their game. Why GooD-NTS used the term "illegal" is beyond me, probably just for publicity.

Want to make a bet?

It's called Lobbying. Where a Corporation writes a Law, then pays off enough Politicians for them to enact it.

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1 minute ago, PhillBellic said:

Want to make a bet?

It's called Lobbying. Where a Corporation writes a Law, then pays off enough Politicians for them to enact it.

 

I doubt any amount of lobbying could make modding a criminal offense. It is only a civil issue, and is even a grey area there.

"Work and ideas get stolen, then you keep moving on doing your thing."

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Just now, FHOG said:

Rockstar just needs to dump T2 as a publisher.

 

T2 isn't just their publisher, they own Rockstar. Rockstar is just a subsidiary of Take Two.

"Work and ideas get stolen, then you keep moving on doing your thing."

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2 minutes ago, willpv23 said:

 

I doubt any amount of lobbying could make modding a criminal offense. It is only a civil issue, and is even a grey area there.

Fair enough, Will. Point taken.

Anyway, it's heartening to read many Comments on Rockstar's Facebook page slamming their/Take Two's C&D against the OpenIV Team.

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I would like to know the reason Take Two started this bullshit for. Did they actually claim that owning OpenIV or modding in general must be considered a crime? What a bunch of shitty fucking twats!

Edited by badass22

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6 hours ago, Starkka15 said:

DCfPSzqWAAAOPHA.thumb.jpg.3821bd2297e4d39d34706d422e53afd2.jpg

Honestly, they were asking for it...

You have a link to this? It doesn't mean anything, could have been inspect elemented. Plus it's from 2 years ago..

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5 hours ago, willpv23 said:

 

I doubt any amount of lobbying could make modding a criminal offense. It is only a civil issue, and is even a grey area there.

Given recent Supreme Court president the legal issue would be against T2 for prohibiting people from modding their game by issuing the cease and desist order. 

 

If you purchased the game you OWN it and have a right to modify, repair, and alter it in anyway you see fit. The "manufacturer" saying that you are prohibited from doing so was just stuck down by the Supreme Court. No amount of lobbying can ever change that. This is a bleeding edge issue so there is little to go on but given the ruling it would be conceivable for a modder that relied on donation revenue (giving them legal standing) from providing mods could sue T2 for damages over this. Software is not quite an ink cartridge but this ruling was sweeping and can absolutely be extended to software TOS just like it applies to physical products TOS.     

 

Source:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/supreme-court-victory-right-tinker-printer-cartridge-case

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1 hour ago, kevind963 said:

Given recent Supreme Court president the legal issue would be against T2 for prohibiting people from modding their game by issuing the cease and desist order. 

We're talking Russia here, though. Completely different laws over there, if they wanted to pursue action in Moscow, not Washington.

It's been three years, but I'm back again...

My GTA IV Modding Workshop

 

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1 hour ago, kevind963 said:

Given recent Supreme Court president the legal issue would be against T2 for prohibiting people from modding their game by issuing the cease and desist order. 

 

If you purchased the game you OWN it and have a right to modify, repair, and alter it in anyway you see fit. The "manufacturer" saying that you are prohibited from doing so was just stuck down by the Supreme Court. No amount of lobbying can ever change that. This is a bleeding edge issue so there is little to go on but given the ruling it would be conceivable for a modder that relied on donation revenue (giving them legal standing) from providing mods could sue T2 for damages over this. Software is not quite an ink cartridge but this ruling was sweeping and can absolutely be extended to software TOS just like it applies to physical products TOS.     

 

Source:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/supreme-court-victory-right-tinker-printer-cartridge-case

Right, and ultimately whether or not you've done nothing wrong, you're going to spend a lot of money in court against T2's lawyers. An action the OpenIV team didn't want to do as they didn't see it worth money defending themselves just to return to the status quo. If anything like that happened to us, we probably wouldn't want to go through court battles with T2 either and would probably have made the same decision.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

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1 hour ago, kevind963 said:

Given recent Supreme Court president the legal issue would be against T2 for prohibiting people from modding their game by issuing the cease and desist order. 

 

If you purchased the game you OWN it and have a right to modify, repair, and alter it in anyway you see fit. The "manufacturer" saying that you are prohibited from doing so was just stuck down by the Supreme Court. No amount of lobbying can ever change that. This is a bleeding edge issue so there is little to go on but given the ruling it would be conceivable for a modder that relied on donation revenue (giving them legal standing) from providing mods could sue T2 for damages over this. Software is not quite an ink cartridge but this ruling was sweeping and can absolutely be extended to software TOS just like it applies to physical products TOS.     

 

Source:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/supreme-court-victory-right-tinker-printer-cartridge-case

 

Unfortunately, the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) ruling and case applied to patents and patent exhaustion. SCOTUS ruled that once a patent owner sold the patented product, they exhausted all rights to the patent. Specifically in this case, applying to ink cartridges (as you mentioned) and by its ruling allowing purchasers of the patent to make changes to the item. In this case, refilling and reselling used ink cartridges.

 

While the SCOTUS decision mentions symbiotic relationships between copyright and patent laws, it does not specifically apply the decision to copyright owners implementation of End User License Agreements to control the use of software. It will be up a court case regarding software to attempt to use the SCOTUS decision above as precedent and apply it to the elimination of EULAs, thus putting modding in the free and clear.

 

OIV could very well use this decision as a precedent in court if they decided to fight T2's recent claims.

 

But until that day in court,  EULAs for copyrights still exist. So dont go out and party just yet.

 

TO BE VERY CLEAR: modding is not "illegal". Its up to T2 to enforce its rights under the EULA. And until you receive such a notice from T2, mod to your hearts content.

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Cyan said:

Right, and ultimately whether or not you've done nothing wrong, you're going to spend a lot of money in court against T2's lawyers. An action the OpenIV team didn't want to do as they didn't see it worth money defending themselves just to return to the status quo. If anything like that happened to us, we probably wouldn't want to go through court battles with T2 either and would have made the same decision.

Oh absolutely, this is more of a "law school" argument than a suggestion. It just adds to the irony of the already baseless claims of T2.

 

29 minutes ago, Hullian111 said:

We're talking Russia here, though. Completely different laws over there, if they wanted to pursue action in Moscow, not Washington.

If only Putin played LSPDFR then this would be a non issue haha.

 

2 minutes ago, thecovesf said:

TO BE VERY CLEAR: modding is not "illegal". Its up to T2 to enforce its rights under the EULA. And until you receive such a notice from T2, mod to your hearts content.

Exactly... I wonder how much they would have to charge for GTA if they intended to enforce the EULA against average the average Joe? Maybe $5,000 per copy? 

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9 minutes ago, Cyan said:

Right, and ultimately whether or not you've done nothing wrong, you're going to spend a lot of money in court against T2's lawyers. An action the OpenIV team didn't want to do as they didn't see it worth money defending themselves just to return to the status quo. If anything like that happened to us, we probably wouldn't want to go through court battles with T2 either and would probably have made the same decision.

I agree and disagree.

 

Yes, it will cost a lot of money to fight a claim by T2 in court. But despite the piles of cash we all know T2 is sitting on, they don't want to spend their money in court either. And it's really one of the motivating factors behind a EULA in the first place. They don't want to go to court anymore than any of us do, so the EULA eliminates a lot of reasons they would have to go to court by simply enforcing the EULA.

 

The vast majority of IP lawsuits are settled out of court because neither side wants to waste time and money. The cases that go to court and all the way up to SCOTUS are the ones where there is a lot of money at stake for both sides. I don't know T2's track record for lawsuits but if they are not a litigiation heavy company, there shouldn't be much to worry about. 

 

Besides, I need to read T2's EULA for GTA5. Most companys these days require that any disputes under an agreement will be settled in arbitration rather than a public court (another legal cost saving measure) so any action by T2 may not be a long drawn out court case but instead a relatively quick hearing in front of an arbiter. 

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2 hours ago, thecovesf said:

I agree and disagree.

 

Yes, it will cost a lot of money to fight a claim by T2 in court. But despite the piles of cash we all know T2 is sitting on, they don't want to spend their money in court either. And it's really one of the motivating factors behind a EULA in the first place. They don't want to go to court anymore than any of us do, so the EULA eliminates a lot of reasons they would have to go to court by simply enforcing the EULA.

 

The vast majority of IP lawsuits are settled out of court because neither side wants to waste time and money. The cases that go to court and all the way up to SCOTUS are the ones where there is a lot of money at stake for both sides. I don't know T2's track record for lawsuits but if they are not a litigiation heavy company, there shouldn't be much to worry about. 

 

Besides, I need to read T2's EULA for GTA5. Most companys these days require that any disputes under an agreement will be settled in arbitration rather than a public court (another legal cost saving measure) so any action by T2 may not be a long drawn out court case but instead a relatively quick hearing in front of an arbiter. 

 

https://www.rockstargames.com/eula

 

Surprisingly, no reference to arbitration that I can see.

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I've been thinking a little bit, and this situation doesn't make sense.  Some claim that the only reason OpenIV got the shaft was because of their Liberty City project.  If this was the case, why wouldn't Take Two just say "stop the project"?  Why stop OpenIV entirely?  Either they truly believe OpenIV is helping people to get online modded, or they are continuing to blatantly lie in order to hide the fact that they don't want their title modded.

 

17 hours ago, CptLuckyStar said:

I don't think it's an over reaction, it could turn into a domino effect, consider the fact that many modders players upload videos to Youtube what happens if Youtube I.E. Google says nope it's illegal now and we don't want you uploading any more modded videos?

 

THIS, 100%  A lot of you saying "this is an overreaction" don't understand this could be the start of something bigger.  Other companies could see Rockstar ('cause fuck Take Two, most of us only look at Rockstar as being the giants) doing this and think 'This might not be a bad idea'. Then you have several other games such as Skyrim that kill off modding. We are have the right to freak out, especially if it lets Take Two know that we do NOT support their idiotic decision.

 

4 hours ago, Cyan said:

Right, and ultimately whether or not you've done nothing wrong, you're going to spend a lot of money in court against T2's lawyers. An action the OpenIV team didn't want to do as they didn't see it worth money defending themselves just to return to the status quo. If anything like that happened to us, we probably wouldn't want to go through court battles with T2 either and would probably have made the same decision.

 

So you'd stop developing LSPDFR just because some company that is too big for their britches is throwing around threats? That is exactly why they do it, because they know everyone will back down and they can continue being assholes.  They wouldn't win in a court case, because they have no fucking case to begin with.  It's scary to think LSPDFR could be shut down all to avoid a court battle.   If Take Two can do this to OpenIV, you bet your ass they can do it to you.

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1 hour ago, Deputy Rourke said:

So you'd stop developing LSPDFR just because some company that is too big for their britches is throwing around threats? That is exactly why they do it, because they know everyone will back down and they can continue being assholes.  They wouldn't win in a court case, because they have no fucking case to begin with.  It's scary to think LSPDFR could be shut down all to avoid a court battle.   If Take Two can do this to OpenIV, you bet your ass they can do it to you.

I can't think of a situation from a legal standpoint where a C&D would be directed towards the LSPDFR project or LCPDFR.com. It would be redirected towards RAGEPluginHook, if anything.

Although in the case of a C&D from an international multi-million dollar company, I think we'd have to weigh up all of our options. I couldn't see that ending well though, just because of the vast amounts of money that would be involved in legal representation against Take Two's vast legal department if it escalated to that, for very little award (continuing the status quo).

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

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