[Drebin]

EDIT 2:
T2 has retracted their Cease-and-Desist order and OpenIV is officially back.

Quote:

After discussions with Take-Two, Take-Two has agreed that it generally will not take legal action against third-party projects involving Rockstar's PC games that are single-player, non-commercial, and respect the intellectual property (IP) rights of third parties. This does not apply to (i) multiplayer or online services; (ii) tools, files, libraries, or functions that could be used to impact multiplayer or online services, or (iii) use or importation of other IP (including other Rockstar IP) in the project.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...-modders-alone

Quote:

We feared that this day would come... And now it's here. The day, when GTA modding was declared illegal. GTA modding had long and glorious history. Since GTA III, people have created lots of different mods: from simple texture replacements to impressive full conversions. And the modding always was a "gray zone" -- a battlefield between lawyers and PR... For almost ten years of OpenIV development, we had tried to play as nice as possible and even more: Strictly following of Civil Code of Russia (only reverse engineering for interoperability). Only clean-room reverse engineering. No distribution of original data and code. And absolutely no messing with Online... On June 5th, 2017, we had received an official Cease-and-Desist letter. It clearly says, that with OpenIV we "allow third parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violation Take-Two's rights". Yes, this letter is illiterate both technically and grammatically (really, they don't even bothered with proof-reading the text). Yes, we can go to court and yet again prove that modding is fair use and our actions are legal. Yes, we could. But we decided not to. Going to court will take at least few months of our time and huge amount of efforts, and, at best, we'll get absolutely nothing. Spending time just to restore status quo is really unproductive, and all the money in the world can't compensate the loss of time. So, we decided to agree with their claims and we're stopping distribution of OpenIV. It was a hard decision, but when any modding activity has been declared illegal, we can't see any possibilities to continue this process, unless top management of Take-Two company makes an official statement about modding, which can be used in court. With many thanks for all modding community for all your fantastic creations, OpenIV team. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Source: http://gtaforums.com/topic/889348-take-two-vs-modding/

So, in short, Take-Two ordered the owners of OpenIV, a tool allowing you to reverse-engineer Take-Two games like GTA V to make modding possible, to shut down - basically making modding in GTA V illegal.

This has a massive impact on the gaming community around the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Whether or not something like this can extend to other branches like SA-MP is not something I can judge on, because I don't know how similar the concepts of SA-MP and OpenIV are.

EDIT: Bear in mind that this was a decision made by Take-Two Interactive, not RockstarGames.

[Nominal]

Huge bullshit, TakeTwo acts pisses me off, mods are one of the things that keep their games alive for many and many years, just look at samp, who would play this game after so long time if there were no multiplayer mods for it?

[HeLiOn_PrImE]

I was expecting this. And I wouldn't worry too much.

Someone from a country far far away from T2's reach, will eventually make a mod and they will ignore all the warnings from these greedy fucks.

You can't defeat your enemy if you don't know who he/she is.

[]Kurence[]

They are just desperately trying to stop development of gta online money hacks cause its eating into their shark card profits. Death to take two

[Hansrutger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeLiOn_PrImE I was expecting this. And I wouldn't worry too much. Someone from a country far far away from T2's reach, will eventually make a mod and they will ignore all the warnings from these greedy fucks. You can't defeat your enemy if you don't know who he/she is.

This. Just a matter of time :3 If it takes so much effort from Blizzard to take down private world of warcraft servers in some European countries then I can't even imagine how annoying it would be for T2 to take down "mods". Maybe if people stopped bending their asses toward T2's direction they would realize it's probably not worth the bother to try to shut down mods.

[Spmn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeLiOn_PrImE I was expecting this. And I wouldn't worry too much. Someone from a country far far away from T2's reach, will eventually make a mod and they will ignore all the warnings from these greedy fucks. You can't defeat your enemy if you don't know who he/she is.

This is not about being anonymous or operating in a country which ignores these kind of disputes (Even though openiv is a russian mod). T2 just turned against the people who kept their games alive for so long since modding is a big part of GTA scene and PC gaming.
What if more devs/publishers will adopt the same policy? Is PC slowly becoming a closed and controlled gaming platform? (See denuvo, uwp vs steam, lawsuits against modders)

[HeLiOn_PrImE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spmn What if more devs/publishers will adopt the same policy? Is PC slowly becoming a closed and controlled gaming platform? (See denuvo, uwp vs steam, lawsuits against modders)

I don't think it will reach that point. It takes one spark to ignite a trend.
Sure they keep getting away with these practices, but people will get enough at some point.

[Cameryn]

What if I don't wanna buy crappy car dlcs and other micro-transaction bs? What's going on with Rockstar?

[CheezIt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cameryn What if I don't wanna buy crappy car dlcs and other micro-transaction bs? What's going on with Rockstar?

Then you are put with the low class and suffer

[xPhantom]

What a surprise, another scummy move by Take-Two.

[Crystallize]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sew_Sumi It's really the same as those who buy early access, play the game, then a change comes in and they all shift from making any review, to being all salty over such a change and changing their review after 1000 hours played... People need to stop being petty, and accept the game changed, and IIRC, that modding was included in their ToS in the first instance... So really, in the end of it all, there's nothing that can be done by changing votes/placing reviews out of spite.

Yes it can.
Basically you are saying if people complain about your product you will keep it like that so none uses your product or you will change it to make everyone happy? Simple logic.

[Sew_Sumi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crystallize Yes it can. Basically you are saying if people complain about your product you will keep it like that so none uses your product or you will change it to make everyone happy? Simple logic.

What are you on about... The agreement hasn't been changed since people bought it... People avoid the ToS, make their own shit regardless of the agreement, then bitch, moan and be all shitty over something they ignored the whole time.


Seriously, this is where knowledge is lost on the coming generations. People make out that SA-MP is the same as GTA IV/V, but it's not, as the ToS of that time didn't have anything pertaining to modding in it, but the GTA V agreement does.

Everyone agreed to it when it was installing, then now that Rockstar again, does something to fix the fact of people using this, they all get feisty and scream bloody murder.


It's almost as if someone released a script, then told everyone they didn't want it to be used, then people kept telling them they are assholes for not allowing them to use the script...

Do you see the logic in this?

They made it, the modders didn't and if they have a serious problem with that then maybe they have to have an education in "What shit is mine, and what shit isn't?"

[Vince]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sew_Sumi as the ToS of that time didn't have anything pertaining to modding in it

Yes it did. The thing is that TakeTwo/Rockstar just never cared because once the game was sold no more money could be made of it. In a few cases Rockstar even showcased mods on their Newswire. I'd say the modding scene even increased revenue because people would buy the game to be able to mod it. So it'd have been a foolish move to shut down that stream of revenue.

[Sew_Sumi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vince Yes it did. The thing is that TakeTwo/Rockstar just never cared because once the game was sold no more money could be made of it. In a few cases Rockstar even showcased mods on their Newswire. I'd say the modding scene even increased revenue because people would buy the game to be able to mod it. So it'd have been a foolish move to shut down that stream of revenue.

It'd have been a more foolish move to allow them to continue doing what they are doing without trying to legally enforce their position.

By doing this, they've made the case against FiveM, a _LOT_ stronger.

[HeLiOn_PrImE]

We can look at it this way:

If they would allow them to continue, people would slowly shift from playing GTA Online to the custom multiplayer mods.
That means sharkcard sales would go down, and that ultimately means we would have a huge slow-down in awesome content (let's face it, Gunrunning is awesome, no matter how expensive it is).

So why not let the sharkcard sales slow down by themselves? The moment will come when Take Two decides to drop the support for GTA Online, and when that happens, they won't be so interested in shutting everyone down. People will be able to develop these multiplayer mods when the game already has much more content.

[xPhantom]

Take a look at this

It hasn't really hit them yet (besides the reviews), but I hope it does.

[Sew_Sumi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeLiOn_PrImE People will be able to develop these multiplayer mods when the game already has much more content.

Once the precedent is set, then that statement, is totally off the table.

There will be no way of developing those mods, as they'll just C&D you...

[HeLiOn_PrImE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sew_Sumi Once the precedent is set, then that statement, is totally off the table. There will be no way of developing those mods, as they'll just C&D you...

My bad there, I didn't understand what OpenIV was entirely about, but now I do.

Still, this is the end of a modding tool not the end of modding itself. People can still make mods and release them on the web, and Take Two can't do shit about it.

I'm still waiting for an official statement from Take Two interactive, because this whole situation smells kinda fishy.
Hell, ARMA 3 has its own modding community, and this shit didn't happen with them...yet. And I personally don't think it will.

Every EULA these days states the same thing: You are not allowed to "reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, prepare derivative works based on or otherwise modify the Software, in whole or in part;"

Mods and tools are being made everywhere, but they don't put efforts into shutting anyone down.
There might have been something really wrong with OpenIV.

[Sew_Sumi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeLiOn_PrImE Every EULA these days states the same thing: You are not allowed to "reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, prepare derivative works based on or otherwise modify the Software, in whole or in part;"

There was an ultimate catch-all line with their EULA, and it was namely about 'interfering' with their business model.

[ozm8ey]

I think its to do with other legal reasons too. They probably don't want people to rip forza horizon 3 cars for that game and convert them to gta v. imagine how much trouble they would get in from microsoft.