A Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City reverse-engineering fan project is back online after Take-Two issued a takedown earlier this year.
As Eurogamer reported in February, the GTA 3 and Vice City reverse-engineering fan projects known as re3 and reVC were hit by a DMCA filed by Rockstar parent company Take-Two that claimed copyright infringement.
The fan-created source code for both games was made available on GitHub, offering a raft of eye-catching improvements over the original games officially available to play today on PC. (For more, check out our feature on how re3 came to be.)
At the time, project lead “aap” told Eurogamer he was worried filing a counterclaim might have sparked a lawsuit.
However, the team behind the projects recently disputed Take-Two’s takedown and, without any sort of legal response from the publisher, GitHub restored the reverse-engineered code.
In May, GitHub restored a fork of the re3 project after its creator successfully filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown counterclaim. Another counterclaim from another developer who worked on the Nintendo Switch port followed. The people behind the main project filed their counterclaim on 10th June.
re3 and reVC Showcase Watch on YouTube
This latest development is not evidence Take-Two has backed down. Rather, GitHub has followed DMCA procedure here. According to DMCA rules, disputed content must be restored between 10 and 14 business days, unless the rightsholder takes legal action. So far, Take-Two has done nothing in response.