Grand Theft Auto (GTA) modders will not receive any Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claims as long as they abide by the rules.
During an earnings call (via PCGamesN) for the first quarter of the 2022 financial year, parent company Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick stated that a take-down notice will only be issued when GTA mods present a potential threat to earnings or when they publicly display indiscipline.
Except for the two aforementioned clauses, Take-Two Interactive claims that it has a “pretty flexible” policy when it comes to supporting mods, which the modding community will probably find hard to believe since nearly every major GTA modding project has been sent a DMCA notice in the past.
“In terms of takedowns, we are pretty flexible, frankly,” said Zelnick. “That said, if the economy is threatened, or if there’s bad behavior, and we know how to define that, then we would issue a takedown notice.”
Earlier in the year, modders rallied to rebuild the source code of GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City for a range of improvements such as reduced loading times and better controller support. Work was ongoing to add support for ray tracing as well when Take-Two Interactive shut the project down.
There have been several other similar GTA modding projects which were canned over the years. As far as the modding community is concerned, Take-Two Interactive has no love for modders. However, the parent company owns all rights to the GTA franchise and as such can take action against any unlicensed use of its intellectual properties.
It goes without saying though that even the most disgruntled modders will return when GTA 6 launches for next-generation platforms. The new installment has so far been a pick for rumor mills and was recently claimed to be set in modern-day Vice City with a release which will not be happening anytime soon.
