Is copyright striking mods ok? And is it even a good business practice?

[VirusDumb]

Ok so first of, if you aren't aware of what take 2 interactive has been busy with, here are some articles you need to read 

https://kotaku.com/classic-mods-and-old-gta-games-didn-t-need-to-die-for-t-1848050135 

https://gamerant.com/grand-theft-auto-trilogy-delisted-mod-comparison/

https://www.polygon.com/22778127/grand-theft-auto-trilogy-definitive-edition-launch-bugs-graphics-pc-version-down

 

so TL:DR take 2 interactive has been taking down mods with Legal notices which have actually been improving their classic games and helping them to sell well even years after launch. And they replaced them with a remaster which is a disaster, with some GTA fans saying that even cyberpunk had less issues than this.

Now there are a lot of things which went wrong, if we start talking about them then this could go on for like a 20 years or so.

But what angered most of the fans is that the mods which take 2 had taken down with those legal notice, actually done a better job in improving the game graphically than Rockstar.

 

 

So the first thing is, is it really ok to copyright striking mods? Well this depends on opinion to opinion. But in my personal opinion, my response is sort of mixed, since you're tinkering with a copyrighted material of a company without it's permission, you kind of fall into a grey area, and the company can copyright strike your work, but mods are completely free, so it doesn't make any sense to get copyright striked since you're not making any profit.

 

Now the second thing is good for business? In my opinion: Absolutely f-ing not, taking down mods really doesn't help, and Rockstar games the back lash was just massive as they totally made a ruined, even ruined isn't enough to describe it, f-ed up release of a game which literally laid the foundation of what rockstar games is today. 

Well mods are the reason why these game still kept selling digitally even after 2 decades of release, and specially in a era where most other companies really are supportive to modders, for example Valve helped modders to turn mods for half life into stand alone games, and they even have a workshop just so that these fans can show off their games. Sega even hires the modders and fan game creators, the Sonic mania was created by fans. Rockstar could've really learnt from that, and hired the modders to make the remaster instead.

 

Wel those were my opinion on these 2 questions. I just want to know what are other's opinion on these issue.

 

 

 

[SansVarnic]

33 minutes ago, SeAsOn3 said:

But in my personal opinion, my response is sort of mixed, since you're tinkering with a copyrighted material of a company without it's permission, you kind of fall into a grey area, and the company can copyright strike your work, but mods are completely free, so it doesn't make any sense to get copyright striked since you're not making any profit.

You pretty much contradicted yourself here...

 

Quote

since you're tinkering with a copyrighted material of a company without it's permission,...

... nd the company can copyright strike your work,

That is it. You're tinkering with their work with no permission, so that sums it up.

So TLDR Yes they can.

[Mark Kaine]

This will happen as long people support such companies. 

 

35 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

That is it. You're tinkering with their work with no permission, so that sums it up.

So TLDR Yes they can.

In theory yes, in practice it depends.  If you ask a modder they will almost always claim "fair use"  (and more hilariously that the mod is their own work only and they will even claim 'copyright' for it... )

 

However,  both is true, a publisher would first have to prove there's an infringement, and on the other hand companies that actually tried , and won, weren't that successful after all, mods still available for most of these games and wouldn't surprise me if the same is true for this game. So in the end these companies usually shoot themselves in the foot, hence most sensible publishers aren't doing anything or even embrace mods, probably because they're also aware of the heritage and their importance.

 

 

[Sarra]

So, Rockstar and Bethesda are both on my 'don't buy, don't recommend, don't care' list, simply for this reason. I was interested in Red Dead 2, but removed it from my wishlist when they started mucking about with GTA V mods.

 

Using a sample size of 1 (that would be me), then yes, it's bad to do this, because they won't sell anything again.

 

Obviously, I'm biased AF, so take it with a pinch of salt.

 

Actually, it's kinda funny. I stopped pirating games, and have spent quite a bit of money, via Steam, on a nice library of games. But, as time goes on, my library is getting more and more games from publishers that support mods, and publishers that actively go after modders are rapidly dwindling in my library. In fact, I almost deleted GTA V and IV from my library after Rockstar's first BS with mods, though... Wait, can GTA IV even run? I don't have it installed, so I can't be arsed to even check.

[Avocado Diaboli]

From what I could gather from a quick glance here, most of the mods targeted are ones that somehow incorporate copyrighted material from one of their games into another one (correct me if I'm wrong). This does in fact affect Rockstar's ability to sell their games. If Rockstar offer all these separate games and you could just buy one of them and play content of the others through a total conversion mod, it's reasonable to conclude that their copyright has been violated.

 

I think this needs to be looked at more nuanced and not just boiled down to "Take 2 are taking down mods". What type of mods? Ones that offer simple quality of life improvements? Replace the built-in textures with newly made ones the modder has the legal rights to? Sure, morally that's pretty reprehensible. But then again, I just had a quick glance at their EULA for GTA III in my Steam library which is dated to 2010.

 

 

I'm not sure I'd classify mods as a breach of copyright in this case (at least not those that aren't actually related to copyrighted material from Take 2 and/or Rockstar), but they're clearly in violation of the EULA people agreed to implicitly by buying the game. Though I'm just baselessly assuming that the EULA the games originally came with state something similar and this wasn't just added later, since III, Vice City and San Andreas originally came out way before that and were added to Steam in 2008, so even that EULA has changed. And even if that clause wasn't in there at the time of release, I'm not knowledgeable enough to say if a unilateral change to the EULA after purchase would apply to people who bought it before the change. But again, that all hinges on the improbable possibility that this clause was only added later.

 

Does all of this suck? Absolutely. But here's the thing, whether they enforce those EULA or not doesn't matter. They can profit off of your free work modding the game, making it playable and improving it for future customers and still yank the rug out from under you anytime they please, because they covered their asses in this case. 

[Mark Kaine]

50 minutes ago, Sarra said:

But, as time goes on, my library is getting more and more games from publishers that support mods

I don't buy any games that dont have mods... i always check 1st. Sometimes i make an exception because i *know* there will be mods (last time iirc with Code Vein , I think they had mods during the 1st day even... now the game wasn't that great, but I couldn't possibly know *that* : p )

 

Gta mods... well they had them already on ps3... but its not generally a game I'm interested in, I played a bit of 4, found it incredibly boring tbh, im generally more into arcade style games, and by that i don't mean literally arcade,  but fast, lots of combos , maneuverability,  lends itself to speed running kind of game... such as indeed Resident Evil 5 or even the first one... maneuverability isn't great in that one, but there's ways around that (ie "juking" look it up if you don't know what it is)

Or fighting games for example,  which are literally arcade games,  and these kind of games are usually super suitable for modding also.

Or Monster Hunter, same thing... its all time based with tight inputs and combos, with incredible speed run potential - and a gazillion of mods, even crossovers with Doom, Dark Souls, etc... *that's* why I have a pc, almost endless possibilities and you aren't necessarily limited to the often narrow minded ideas of seemingly creatively bankrupt game devs  how their games should be played.

 

^who then often actually copy mods and mod ideas for their next games... gotta give them props for that at least I guess.

 

Battle royale genre has been invented purely due to modding also for example. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

From what I could gather 

from what I gather, all the 'game altering' mods for gta are still available... although I don't have a good overview obviously, since I never played the game, so I'll put that into the "games journalism" category for now -- although its maybe like you said and they only target very specific mods...

 

Of course regardless of that, this leaves a very shallow taste and the impression they indeed go after mods, for only one reason and thats that their "new" game sucks...

[TetraSky]

I'm not even sure if these companies have any legal ground to copyright strike a mod.

Sure if it's a total conversion mod or private servers, which they then proceed to sell without requiring the base game or subscription, maybe...

But mods typically need the base game to work, so already there's no loss of profit there for the company. No "damages" to be argued other than maybe "the branding" if it's something harmful portrayed to an audience as if it was part of the base game.
Mods also generally don't include anything from the base game, it adds on top of it, meaning it's not code or graphics owned by the copyright owners. It would be like putting a hat on a lamp to replace the lamp shade or something dumb like that.

 

Has any modder ever actually challenged this in court?

 

Oh and to answer OP, no it's not ok and no it is obviously not good business practice. The mods need the base game to work. Mods add extra incentive to keep playing a game, thus push users to telling their friends about how good the game is with XY mods which result in more sales. They are literally shooting themselves in the foot with this backward thinking just to push their newer version.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

Has any modder ever actually challenged this in court?

There were a few cases, for example Koei Tecmo, but idr fully if it went to court -- but I think so because they "won". Koei, might even has done it twice lol. Very few cases however.  Mostly modders just get bullied into taking down their mods from the looks of it... with no long term effects as I mentioned, these mods are all available.

 

What also often gets ignored in these discussions,  pirated games usually can't be modded with normally available mods, hence modders tend to buy their games instead of pirating,  which seems oh so important for the publishers, otherwise. 

 

6 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

EULA

Well, its not necessarily legally binding,  and it's also something publishers have to do to protect their legitimate interests,  ie people breaking games with mods and then possibly blaming the game devs etc, or sell assets (which is actually a problem these publishers seem to be completely oblivious about ironically...) 

Good example Monster Hunter again,  guaranteed that also has such an EULA,  yet the devs apparently fully on purpose left a function in the game that makes modding a cakewalk and are also on record that they have nothing against modding - but don't offer support for issues that are possibly caused by mods ... fair enough,  I guess!

 

 

 

 

[VirusDumb]

8 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

That is it. You're tinkering with their work with no permission, so that sums it up.

So TLDR Yes they can.

But as long as they don't make any money it falls under fair use.

[YoungBlade]

2 minutes ago, SeAsOn3 said:

But as long as they don't make any money it falls under fair use.

No, that's not the case. Not making money helps a fair use case, but it's not a requirement nor does it guarantee that something is fair use. It needs to be some form of critique, for educational purposes, and/or otherwise using a minimal amount of the original work to provide commentary on it. Quoting a paragraph from a novel in a review is fair use even if you're making money on the review. Just quoting it to share it without providing any of your own thoughts, even if it's the same paragraph, and regardless of monetization, is copyright infringement.

[VirusDumb]

7 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

From what I could gather from a quick glance here, most of the mods targeted are ones that somehow incorporate copyrighted material from one of their games into another one (correct me if I'm wrong)

Well most like about 51% of the mods taken down were either reversed engineered versions, or fan remakes but not all of them, rest of them were just totally new and built from the scratch HD models, lighting effects, some new mission and story mods, and the lspd roleplay mod. (Source) 

Not only that, what really became a massive joke was that they even copyright striked a save game. (Here)

[Mark Kaine]

9 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Just quoting it to share it without providing any of your own thoughts, even if it's the same paragraph, and regardless of monetization, is copyright infringement.

Which is exactly what modders are saying,  that it is their own work and only theirs (and reverse engineering doesn't count for some unfathomable reason) and every single mod forum, community,  platform etc has exactly that as a rule that only the mod 'creator' has the the right on their 'creations' to share or monetize it...

 

I'm not saying I agree with this, but I'm saying i had literally endless debates over this, they will not move a single iota from this position  - and its actually working for them, some make thousands of $/month with this and they do not care what you, I or the actual right owners think...

 

And with this background I would very well argue that an innocent,  non monetized mod is or at least can be "fair use" .

 

Like how are you explaining that changing an enemy to "Thomas the tank engine" is *not* parody,  or a criticism,  or a artistic freedom or whatever else stupid regulations this law has? Idk but its gonna be tough,  I suppose!

[Nayr438]

15 hours ago, SeAsOn3 said:

So the first thing is, is it really ok to copyright striking mods? Well this depends on opinion to opinion. But in my personal opinion, my response is sort of mixed, since you're tinkering with a copyrighted material of a company without it's permission, you kind of fall into a grey area, and the company can copyright strike your work, but mods are completely free, so it doesn't make any sense to get copyright striked since you're not making any profit

Creating mods means Reverse Engineering happened somewhere, I would be surprised if this didn't violate there terms in some way.

While Reverse Engineering is technically legal, most agreements for software prohibit it.

The Redistribution and Modification of protected work also violates most agreements.

 

It's a breach of contract. There is no grey area, if you Violate that contract it is up to the company to enforce it or not.

 

15 hours ago, SeAsOn3 said:

Now the second thing is good for business? In my opinion: Absolutely f-ing not, taking down mods really doesn't help, and Rockstar games the back lash was just massive as they totally made a ruined, even ruined isn't enough to describe it, f-ed up release of a game which literally laid the foundation of what rockstar games is today. 

Game Modifications have been shown to reduce sales for Remastered Titles. So it does make sense to target the modding community.

 

FiveM a popular Emulated Server for GTA 5 is a good example at what Rockstar Games will likely do.

Anytime there is a major update to GTA 5, Take-Two goes after the project, once a x amount of time has passed and they feel they have made there profit targets, they back off.

Take-Two doesn't care about the modding community, they just don't want it to interfere with there Business.

 

It's hard to push a new DLC or a Remastered Game, when the modding community has already done it.

[YoungBlade]

20 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Which is exactly what modders are saying,  that it is their own work and only theirs (and reverse engineering doesn't count for some unfathomable reason) and every single mod forum, community,  platform etc has exactly that as a rule that only the mod 'creator' has the the right on their 'creations' to share or monetize it...

 

I'm not saying I agree with this, but I'm saying i had literally endless debates over this, they will not move a single iota from this position  - and its actually working for them, some make thousands of $/month with this and they do not care what you, I or the actual right owners think...

 

And with this background I would very well argue that an innocent,  non monetized mod is or at least can be "fair use" .

 

Like how are you explaining that changing an enemy to "Thomas the tank engine" is *not* parody,  or a criticism,  or a artistic freedom or whatever else stupid regulations this law has? Idk but its gonna be tough,  I suppose!

I wasn't necessarily trying to comment on this exact situation. I was just trying to point out that not making money off something is only a part of a defense for fair use and neither required nor a rock-solid defense in-and-of-itself. This whole situation is rather complicated in terms of the copyright laws, because for things that the modders directly made, they do potentially own copyright on it. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak to that.

[Mark Kaine]

24 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

I wasn't necessarily trying to comment on this exact situation. I was just trying to point out that not making money off something is only a part of a defense for fair use and neither required nor a rock-solid defense in-and-of-itself. This whole situation is rather complicated in terms of the copyright laws, because for things that the modders directly made, they do potentially own copyright on it. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak to that.

Ah, ok I partly misunderstood what you were saying then, but my reply still fits i guess, because that is precisely what I wanted to point out, its more difficult than people think and legally not that easy. Also supported by the fact that modders almost never get sued or anything (think about the potential PR disaster too... ) 

 

Edit: also! Afaik depending on region you're allowed to "fix" software,  including reverse engineering for this purpose,  and let's be honest a lot of mods are doing exactly that... this is a very slippery slope these "rockstars" are walking... ~

[VirusDumb]

12 hours ago, Nayr438 said:

It's hard to push a new DLC or a Remastered Game, when the modding community has already done it.

Well in that case they should work their ass off to make it better than what the modding community did, or maybe hire those modders to make the DLC or remaster(just like Sega did with sonic mania) instead of some shit studios who have the reputation of making broken and glitchy ports.

They could've been fair this way, or even if what they released was even 1% better than the mods, taking those mods down would have been justified, but what they released was made with 0% care and quality making it far worse than even the original without any mods (which have also been delisted)

[VirusDumb]

Update: modders have already started fixing the game before Rockstar has even brought them back online (they have been removed from the rockstar game launcher which is the only way to start the game unless you've pirated it.)

https://www.windowscentral.com/gta-trilogy-modders-have-already-fixed-some-its-biggest-issues-and-game-isnt-even-out-yet 

Which actually shows that modders care about the games more than the studio which devloped it. And adds to the argument of why taking downs mods goes somewhat against business ethics

[Avocado Diaboli]

5 minutes ago, SeAsOn3 said:

And adds to the argument of why taking downs mods goes somewhat against business ethics

I doubt anyone here will defend Rockstar or Take-Two on moral grounds. One would have to be quite a needless contrarian to, as someone who isn't directly affiliated with either of the two companies, take the position that taking down mods and threatening legal action against fans of their products, whose work has improved them and made them more appealing to other people is somehow morally the right thing to do. But morals and fiscal policy rarely mesh well.

[Donut417]

On 11/14/2021 at 12:33 AM, SeAsOn3 said:

is it really ok to copyright striking mods?

Take Two owns the rights. Under the law its their intellectual property. They have to right to sue any one they want. The government has the right to prosecute and put you in prison. Its the law. plain and simple. You may not agree with it, but you will be legally held accountable, either in a criminal matter or a civil one. 

 

If you have an issue with the law, I would suggest contacting your elected representatives and discuss it with them. The only way to fix issues like this is thru legislation. Unfortunately at the Federal Level in the US most of these representatives are paid off. Too bad its not like its here in Michigan where we can force an issue on a Ballot and force the government to change the law like we did with Marijuana, because it wasn't Lansing who passed that law it was a direct vote of the citizens that changed the law. 

[VirusDumb]

On 11/17/2021 at 4:49 AM, Donut417 said:

Take Two owns the rights. Under the law its their intellectual property. They have to right to sue any one they want. The government has the right to prosecute and put you in prison. Its the law. plain and simple. You may not agree with it, but you will be legally held accountable, either in a criminal matter or a civil one. 

 

If you have an issue with the law, I would suggest contacting your elected representatives and discuss it with them. The only way to fix issues like this is thru legislation. Unfortunately at the Federal Level in the US most of these representatives are paid off. Too bad its not like its here in Michigan where we can force an issue on a Ballot and force the government to change the law like we did with Marijuana, because it wasn't Lansing who passed that law it was a direct vote of the citizens that changed the law. 

Don't wanna get political here, but according to law in my country (India) this would fall under fair use, but it may be a violation of end user policy, and I don't think you can really sue someone for that

[Donut417]

20 hours ago, SeAsOn3 said:

Don't wanna get political here, but according to law in my country (India) this would fall under fair use, but it may be a violation of end user policy, and I don't think you can really sue someone for that

Fair use in the US is not well defined by law. So essentially if a copy right holder can convince a judge it was infringement then the other party involved can be held accountable with large judgment. Most projects settle out of court because the threats of large judgments makes them not fight back. 

[Lurick]

On 11/16/2021 at 6:19 PM, Donut417 said:

Take Two owns the rights. Under the law its their intellectual property. They have to right to sue any one they want. The government has the right to prosecute and put you in prison. Its the law. plain and simple. You may not agree with it, but you will be legally held accountable, either in a criminal matter or a civil one. 

 

If you have an issue with the law, I would suggest contacting your elected representatives and discuss it with them. The only way to fix issues like this is thru legislation. Unfortunately at the Federal Level in the US most of these representatives are paid off. Too bad its not like its here in Michigan where we can force an issue on a Ballot and force the government to change the law like we did with Marijuana, because it wasn't Lansing who passed that law it was a direct vote of the citizens that changed the law. 

The issue, at least what I have anyway, is that some of these mods are 10+ years old and they didn't go after them for so long. I don't know all the intricacies of copyright law but I know in trademark law you have to actively defend your rights or you lose them and there could very well be similar stuff for copyright. I mean to not enforce it when you could have done so years ago and shut this down then and to only do it now seems wrong.

[JZStudios]

On 11/13/2021 at 11:06 PM, SansVarnic said:

You pretty much contradicted yourself here...

 

That is it. You're tinkering with their work with no permission, so that sums it up.

So TLDR Yes they can.

No, they can't. You own the software license you purchased and anything you do with it is legal. As long as the mods aren't redistributing copyrighted material, R* and T2 have no legal grounds for a cease and desist.

Even if the mods are redistributing altered code, it's technically a new piece of material.

 

But these modders aren't going to court with T2 even though they're in the right, and T2 knows it.

[SansVarnic]

14 hours ago, JZStudios said:

You own the software license you purchased and anything you do with it is legal.

Yet the key wording here is ... "software license you purchased" ... if its not then my point stands.

As I said, "You're tinkering with their work with no permission, so that sums it up." Pretty clear and straight forward.