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Florida Man Wants $2 Million From Rockstar Over Parody Appearance In GTA6 Trailer

from the and-here-we-go dept

The folks behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise are certainly no strangers to lawsuits and complaints over publicity rights issues. GTA5 famously found the publishers of the game in court defending itself against the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Karen Gravano, ultimately winning both cases. Anyone familiar with the GTA franchise will have a sense of what is going on here. The series makes a regular habit of creating parodies of whatever is in the pop culture lexicon at the time of the game, with nods, but not faithful recreations, towards real life personas. In fact, most often, GTA will take multiple cultural references and mash them together as parody and off-color commentary on whatever it is parodying. All of that, of course, is speech protected by the First Amendment.

Rockstar’s latest iteration of its opus franchise is due to come out soon. A trailer for the game was released recently, showing off some impressive visuals within the game, as well as several examples of the exact cultural references described above. One of those was a nod to an individual known as the “Florida Joker,” who began making noise on social media about wanting to be paid millions of dollars as a result of the homage.

A Florida man is calling on Rockstar Games to pay him $2 million for showing literally one second of a character who looks like him in the reveal trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6. Lawrence Sullivan, AKA “Florida Joker,” accused the studio of stealing his likeness in his latest TikTok video. But a Red Dead Redemption 2 voice actor wasn’t having it.

Sullivan, who got his face tattooed to resemble Jared Leto’s version of the Joker following the Batman villain’s appearance in 2016’s Suicide Squad, has been trying to monetize his recent flicker in the limelight. “Let’s talk,” he said in a public call to Rockstar after parodies of him and other viral social media figures appeared in GTA 6’s long-awaited first trailer.

This is extremely unlikely to go anywhere. As in the previous cases, what Rockstar is doing here is purely parodying a pop culture figure. What it is not doing is creating a faithful reproduction of Sullivan. Just having your face tattooed as a skinny guy isn’t enough to qualify as reproducing the personage of an internet sensation. As in the Lohan and Gravano situations, there are obvious nods to Sullivan and several internet memes in which he is featured, but that is not all that the character in the game is, based on the trailer.

Parody is a thing and it is protected speech. Rockstar has established a reputation for itself in this game series in which it parodies the current culture as a method for commenting on it humorously. And, as voice actor Roger Clark noted, its lawyers have been well-attuned to what lines can be crossed and what cannot.

One person who seems to think Sullivan has no reason to complain is Roger Clark, the voice actor behind Red Dead Redemption 2’s protagonist, Arthur Morgan. “[Rockstar Games is] lawyered up, man,” he said in his own TikTok video, according to PC Gamer. “They know exactly what they can and cannot get away with. If I were you, I would use the notoriety they just threw your way to your advantage. Capitalize on it somehow. You ain’t getting a job at Home Depot with that face.”

Disparaging comments aside, Clark is exactly right. The lawyers will have already vetted the content of the game to make sure it won’t run afoul of accusations just like this. And, to add, Clark is spot on that Sullivan ought to be using the homage as a way to boost his own notoriety and, perhaps, ability to monetize his persona.

I wouldn’t expect a lawsuit to be filed in this case as a result of all of this, but I’ve been surprised in the past.

Filed Under: florida joker, grand theft auto, lawrence sullivan, parody, the joker, trailer
Companies: rockstar games

Rockstar Releases Same Buggy, Broken ‘GTA Trilogy’ Game To Steam… But On Sale!

from the well-that's-one-solution dept

Over a year ago, we discussed an annoying and strange set of actions taken by Rockstar and Take2, the companies behind the popular Grand Theft Auto series of games. Two actions were taken in sequence by those companies that were clearly related. First was that they worked to get a fan-made GTA 4 mod taken down, after learning that the mod essentially brought the cities and some of the gameplay from previous GTA games into GTA 4. Shortly after that was done, Rockstar released GTA Trilogy, which was a re-release bundle of those same older games the mod was incorporating. The problem is that GTA Trilogy was such a broken mess that the company had to pull the games out of online stores almost immediately. The launcher for the game was broken, the games were buggy as hell, and so on.

So why are we talking about this again? Well, GTA Trilogy is getting released again, on Steam first. But if you thought the bugs had been worked out and all is well with the title… LOL, no. Instead, a buggy version is being released again as is, but this time on sale!

Today, after some leaks and rumors, Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition on Steam. The good news: It’s on sale, meaning you can grab all three classic games for cheap. The bad news: It’s the same infamously messy remaster that hasn’t received a substantial update since nearly a year ago. As you might expect, folks ain’t too happy about the situation.

Rockstar ultimately had to apologize to the community because the remasters were so awful. Eventually, Rockstar and Grove Street Games did fix some of the problems players had cataloged online. But the last major update for the game was in February 2022. Since then, the remastered trilogy has remained in a fairly rough state. So it doesn’t seem like the best time to release it on a new platform and yet, here we are.

$30 for three games really should sound like a good deal. But the public fully knows how buggy these games are and it’s completely tone-deaf to release those buggy games with the only give-back being a discount on price. And if you want to speculate that Rockstar has some patch in the works to un-break the games, keep in mind that the trilogy has been off the market for over a year now. There was plenty of time to fix the title before re-releasing it. I also imagine that buyers would prefer to have a completely working game rather than a discount on a broken one.

While some hold out hope that Rockstar will still swoop in, patch these games up and fix all the visual bugs and other problems, that seems more unlikely after today. Instead, it seems this is as good as things are going to get. Not to mention that Rockstar has plans to release these games on the Epic Store later this month, too. It does seem as if the time to fix GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas has run out and Rockstar is ready to move on. What a shame.

It’s not just a shame; I struggle to understand how this move makes any sense at all. Discount or no, the release of a buggy game is going to get Rockstar absolutely murdered in terms of customer responses to this whole situation. It’s making the mistake it made over a year ago all over again, but telling the public to be satisfied with a discount on the game.

As they say, when you’re in a hole, the first step is to stop digging.

Filed Under: bugs, gta, gta trilogy, steam, video games
Companies: rockstar games, take 2, valve

Rockstar Tries To Bury ‘GTA6’ Leak With DMCAs, Streisands Them Instead

from the paging-ms.-streisand dept

At this point, we probably have enough stories about companies trying to bury leaked information or content that hasn’t been publicly released via DMCA takedowns that it warrants its own metatag. It’s both amazing and frustrating that this is still a tactic companies, particularly tech companies, think somehow works. It doesn’t. Once a leak is out on the internet, the game is already over. That footage is out there, and trying to do battle with internet to disappear it just isn’t going to work.

Which brings us to Rockstar Games. Days ago, Rockstar acknowledged that its internal corporate network had suffered an intrusion. As a result, a bunch of data and files were exfiltrated, including footage of the Grand Theft Auto 6 game that is in active development and the source code for past GTA games.

Let’s acknowledge first that nobody is cheering for companies to be attacked like this. Or, at least, nobody reasonable. Let’s also acknowledge that a game developer having raw footage of an unfinished AAA game being released into the wild must be incredibly stressful and frustrating. All the obvious questions emerge. Will the public take this as an indication of the quality of the finished project? How does this change their marketing strategies? Does any of the footage include enough information to give competitors a look at proprietary advancements within the game? Does any of this push back the development and release timeline?

All of that is entirely understandable. And, for the purposes of this Techdirt post, entirely besides the point. Because like many of Rockstars peers that have gone through this in the past, instead of trying to acknowledge the leaked footage in a PR mode that would be built around messaging to any members of the public that might view the leak and reach the wrong conclusions, Rockstar instead decided to just try to play DMCA whac-a-mole with the entire internet.

The effects of this weekend’s GTA VI leaks are going to be long-lasting, but the immediate aftermath is already bemusing enough to chronicle. As you might expect, Take-Two is launching into a full-on Streisand manoeuvre and trying to DMCA any and all footage from the leak. At the same time, the source code for GTA V appears to be being offered for sale, while the origin of the leak is playing whack-a-mole against himself. And just this minute, Rockstar have confirmed the leak as real.

Indeed it did. In fact, by DMCAing all of this leaked content, Rockstar even lost what little chance it had to simply not comment on any of this, which would have left the public unsure of if the leak was even real. If Rockstar is DMCAing it, it’s real.

And while, sure, some of the content has been taken down by DMCA notices around the internet, the content is still out there for you to find if you search for it with a bit of a can-do attitude. And now many, many more people know about the leak and that the content exists, all because of Rockstar’s decision to engage in a sure-to-fail battle with a resilient internet designed to route around this sort of thing. The Streisand Effect, in other words.

Now, it appears that the person who penetrated Rockstar’s corporate network is open to the idea of blackmailing the company, with some evidence that he or she is taking bids to not leak more content. And that sucks. But attempting to bury this leak once it’s already out in the wild makes as much sense as attempting to un-grill a bone-in ribeye.

It ain’t going to work and, meanwhile, your cooked steak is getting cold.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, gta, gta 6, streisand effect, takedown
Companies: rockstar games

Take-Two’s War On Its Own Modding Community Continues, Harming Take-Two

from the c'mon-guys dept

Over the past couple of years, we’ve discussed several battles in the war on the modding community Take-Two and Rockstar Games launched. I’ve never seen a coherent explanation for why this war was needed at all, from either the publishers or speculators. Almost without warning, Take-Two went on a DMCA blitz on sites hosting these mods, many of which had been around for years. And these aren’t merely mods that allow people to cheat in online games. Many of them are mods for the single-player game, allowing players to do new and interesting things. You know, making Take-Two’s product more valuable, in other words.

But the war continues anyway. Luke Ross made virtual reality mods for several Take-Two games and woke up recently to find that Take-Two had filed copyright claims on his Patreon page.

Earlier today, Ross shared on his Patreon page and Twitter that he had just received a notice from Patreon informing him that Take-Two had filed a copyright claim against his page and its content. Ross creates virtual reality conversion mods for popular games such as Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption II, and Mafia II: Definitive Edition. All of these games are published by companies that Take-Two Interactive owns.

The notice reportedly orders Ross to remove all “copyrighted content” from his page or risk suspension by Patreon. And here’s where things get messy. For starters, the notice doesn’t identify which specific content needs to be removed. That’s kind of important, because Ross insists that his mods don’t actually use any of Take-Two’s code, assets, or intellectual property.

“I never misrepresent the games as my creations, don’t reuse any of the original software, assets, or IP in general, and my mods always need the original games to work,” Ross told Kotaku. “So it’s only additional sales for the developer/publisher, and the possibility for the gamers to enjoy a kind of experience they could not have otherwise on a flatscreen.”

And this is what makes this all so damned frustrating. Once again, Ross’ work results in no negative outcome for Take-Two. In fact, his work — done for free, by the way — actually only makes the company’s games more attractive and valuable to more potential buyers, namely those that want to play the game in VR.

And for being a hobbyist who manages to provide this benefit to Take-Two, Ross gets a vague threat letter and no help in figuring out what Take-Two is actually seeking to have removed. Way to shoot yourselves in the foot, folks.

Filed Under: content moderation, copyright, dmca, modding community, mods
Companies: patreon, rockstar games, take two

Take-Two Interactive Appears To Be Morphing From Game Publisher Into IP Troll

from the devolving-more-like dept

There is this thing that sometimes happens to companies that are wildly successful where they stop focusing so much on making the things that made them successful and turn instead to intellectual property trolling. Think Atari, for instance. Atari was once a behemoth in the gaming industry, but have since been reduced to trying to bully and/or sue everyone who comes even remotely close to referencing one of its properties, rather than making any real hay in the industry.

This process of devolving from competing business to grifting troll is at its most obvious in the end-state, where Atari is now. I won’t pretend that a company like Take-Two is anywhere near there just yet, but it is notable that we have seen a recent uptick in the company engaging in this restrictive and trollish behavior. Whether it’s fighting its own modding community to release shitty versions of its own older games or filing trademark oppositions for axe-throwing companies (yes, seriously), this just isn’t where the focus should be for a company known to make amazing AAA video game titles.

There is apparently more here than had been previously known. NME has a decent writeup discussing all the IP action Take-Two is getting involved in, some of which includes the examples mentioned above. However, it also includes a couple of other examples of trademark bullying I hadn’t seen previously. The first deals briefly with an opposition for a trademark application by Hazelight Studios for its game It Takes Two.

The owner of Rockstar Games has filed hundreds of trademark disputes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office over words and phrases like “2K”, “Rockstar” and “Take-Two”.

This included the publisher attempting to file a trademark dispute over It Takes Two with Hazelight Studios. After being published in May of last year, the trademark was abandoned on March 20 this year.

As the post notes, the application was abandoned by Hazelight Studios in March of this year. There is no detail on offer as to whether Take-Two’s threat of opposition was the reason for the abandonment, but that’s mostly besides the point. That point being: this is a silly opposition to begin with. The studio’s name being somewhat similar to the name of the planned game doesn’t really point to any serious concern about public confusion mixing up the two. This appears to be pure trademark maximalism, or bullying.

The second might be closer to a valid opposition, though it still all seems rather silly.

A more recent and open trademark filing from Take-Two concerns Max Pain, a business which according to opencorporates.com promotes Twitch streamers, Youtube content creators and Esports teams. Max Pain was given an incorporation date (the date it can commence business) of June 29 2020.

Whilst the US Patent and trademark office doesn’t appear to list what this specific trademark is over from Take-Two, it appears as though the publisher is filing in connection to Max Payne, the series developed by Rockstar. The trademark dispute has been extended, and appears to be ongoing.

In this case, Max Payne and Max Pain sound the same when spoken, except that the services rendered appear to be significantly different. Sure, streamers stream video games sometimes. Yes, eSports involve video games. But is anyone really looking at a promotion agency for streamers and eSports teams called Max Pain and thinking that this has anything to do with Take-Two’s video game franchise? That seems pretty unlikely.

But wherever you come down on these individual instances, it sure feels like Take-Two is becoming more and more focused on being the IP police rather than doing what made the company the giant it is in the industry: making outstanding AAA games. And that, in turn, feels like it could be the starting point for Take-Two Atari-izing itself.

And that would be a damned shame.

Filed Under: licensing, trademark, trademark trolling, trolling, trolls, video games
Companies: rockstar games, take two interactive

'GTA' Modding Group Doesn't Fold, Fights Back In Court Against Take-Two, Rockstar

from the mod-squad dept

We’ve been talking a great deal about Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games lately as it relates to their aggressive actions on modding communities for the Grand Theft Auto series. This new war on modders really kicked off over the summer, with the companies looking to shut down a bunch of mods that mostly brought old GTA content into newer games for retro fans. Then came one modding group managing to reverse engineer the game to create its own version of the source code, which it posted on GitHub. Rockstar DMCA’d that project, but at least one modder managed to get GitHub to put it back up. That project was called “GTA RE3” and was supposed to be the basis to let other modders do all sorts of interesting things with the game from a modding standpoint, or to forklift the game onto platforms it wasn’t designed for, say on a Nintendo console. Take-Two and Rockstar then cried “Piracy!” and filed a lawsuit.

That’s typically where the story would end. The modding group would hide or run away if they could, or they would settle the suit for fear of a long and protracted legal process. But that doesn’t appear to be the case here, as the four men behind RE3 have responded to the suit, denying all accusations and asserting fair use. The response from the modder’s attorneys is embedded below, but mostly consists of outright one-sentence denials or assertions that the claims in the suit aren’t such that they have enough knowledge to affirm or deny them, and therefore deny them. But there are also some nuggets in there that tease out what the defense would be if this thing proceeds.

Right off the bat, the defendants assert that anything they did in connection with their GTA 3 and Vice City projects were actions protected by fair use under the Copyright Act. If any copying of copyright-protected material did occur, that was undertaken to allow for interoperability of software and fixing bugs present in the original titles.

As a result, any alleged ‘reverse engineering’ of original code represents a transformative use of that content, i.e it added something new, with a further purpose or different character, and did not substitute for the original use of the work.

This is an interesting take. From what I’ve read on the project, you would typically need to have the source material, the original games, in order to make use of any of this code. That brings up the obvious question of whether there is any actual concern here of this reverse engineered code itself directly competing with the official games, particularly given that much of what this team did was done to patch bugs and apply fixes to games that Rockstar hasn’t patched themselves for years and given how Take-Two has screwed around with how the public can even buy these games.

Another important fact highlighted in the answer to the complaint is that the defendants’ modifications are useless in their own right. In fact, anyone who wished to make use of ‘re3’ and ‘reVC’ could not do so without already possessing copies of GTA 3 and Vice City, games that Take-Two stopped making available for purchase on its online stores.

This leads to the question of whether the alleged conduct of the defendants affected the market for those games and if so, in what way. According to the answer, the mods did not affect the market but to the extent they did, any shift would’ve been positive since people needed to purchase the games to use the mods.

Notably, Rockstar has taken a far different route when it has come to dealing with other mods that improve aspects of GTA games in the past. One example would be a modder who essentially fixed long-loading times in GTA Online, only to have Rockstar pay them for it. And yet with RE3, where the stated aim of the modders was similar, it’s all DMCA takedowns and lawsuits. And that mod wasn’t the only one, nor apparently the only “approved” of mod that required reverse engineering of the source code.

Take-Two has previously allowed third parties to develop mods of its software (including for GTA 3 and Vice City) without any adverse action in response. That’s according to the answer which states that Take-Two (or its “subsidiaries or predecessors interest”) have “showcased” mods and even released portions of its software to the Multi Theft Auto (MTA) mod project.

“These supported, encouraged, or allowed ‘mod’ projects, upon information and belief, required the reverse engineering of software just as Defendants are alleged to have undertaken. Upon information and belief, Defendants had an implied license to undertake any complained of actions or Plaintiff abandoned is copyright,” the answer reads.

It’s also notable that the response denies that any of this work was done within the United States. The response therefore questions why American copyright laws are being applied to activity that occurred outside of the country.

Will any of this work? That’s obviously a question for the courts and/or a jury trial, but it is worth noting that all of this is not occurring in a vacuum. Instead, Take-Two and Rockstar have had a hell of a couple of weeks of bad press due to a botched release of GTA Trilogy and the disruption of its game launcher that made many of its PC games unplayable. To be in the midst of all of that and then be fighting these modders who are simply trying to make the games people have bought, or will buy, more playable is one hell of a bad look.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, gta, gta re3, modding, video games
Companies: rockstar games, take two interactive

Rockstar's GTA Retro Games Was Completely Broken And Support Was Ghosting Everyone

from the more-like-grand-theft-notto-amirite? dept

You may recall that a couple of months ago we discussed Rockstar and Take2, the game studio and publisher behind the Grand Theft Auto series, taking down a fan-made GTA4 mod that aimed to put all of the cities from previous games in one massive map. While this was a labor of love by dedicated fans of the GTA series, it escaped nobody’s attention that this action was taken on a mod started in 2014 just as Rockstar was about to release GTA Trilogy, consisting of remastered versions of GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas. The very cities the mod looked to input into GTA4. In other words, the fan project was only shut down when the game companies decided to try to make money off this retro love themselves.

So how’s it going? Well, not too fucking great on the PC side considering that the PC version was pulled down basically everywhere.

Something has gone very, very wrong since yesterday’s launch of GTA Trilogy on PC. As of last night, all mention of a PC version has been removed from Rockstar’s own site, and the Rockstar Games Launcher app has gone completely offline. Anyone who bought the remastered collection before it vanished is currently unable to play.

It has been at least 18 hours since the sudden disappearance of the PC’s GTA Trilogy, and Kotaku can confirm that the Launcher is not working. Which means all Rockstar PC games, including Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA Online, are currently impossible to play.

You read that right. The PC Rockstar Launcher, responsible for letting gamers play the games they bought, was borked. On Twitter, Rockstar’s support had only been so transparent as to say that the launcher is down due to “maintenance”. Unscheduled or unannounced maintenance, as it turns out. And maintenance that lasted several days. Now, you could get the launcher to work in offline mode… for those who know how to do that. But paying customers were left to figure it out for themselves because Rockstar’s support only sent two tweets out during that downtime with barely any details.

As of Monday, Rockstar finally got its launcher working again and the GTA Trilogy back to being available for purchase and play. But as to what caused all of this, Rockstar is as opaque as ever. Whether something related to the GTA Trilogy title is somehow related to all of this isn’t entirely known…

…but it is the case that people recently bought those titles and couldn’t play them. Bad communication from the company to the public is compounding, at least in this writer’s head, with the effort it put into shutting down a fan-made work and labor of love that would have given GTA fans some retro thrills.

And to make matters a bit stranger, Rockstar had previously delisted its PC version from all 3rd party marketplaces.

For whatever reasons, Rockstar chose to remove all versions of GTAs III, Vice City, and San Andreas from alternative PC stores—including Steam—ahead of this launch, meaning its bespoke software is now the only way to buy and play the games. Or indeed, the only way to not play it.

And so Rockstar customers were left to the tender mercies of a company that doesn’t seem to feel like telling them what’s going on. All while trying to prevent fan-made game mods from being a thing. Not a great look.

Filed Under: availability, broken, customer support, gta, gta trilogy, video games
Companies: rockstar games

Rockstar Begins A War On Modders For 'GTA' Games For Totally Unclear Reasons

from the mod-squad dept

There are two types of video game publishers: those that embrace their modding communities and those that do not. The latter group is in something of a spectrum. iD Software, for instance, has long kept the modding community open and operating on its Doom titles, while developer 1C embraced its modding community so much that it built some mods into official releases. Other publishers have gone into full restriction mode, shutting down modding communities and even going after them over supposed copyright infringement violations.

Rockstar Games has previously had its own run-in with its modding community, banning modders who attempted to shift GTA5’s online gameplay to dedicated servers that would allow mods to be used, since Rockstar’s servers don’t allow mods. What it’s now doing in issuing copyright notices on modders who have been forklifting older Rockstar assets into newer GTA games, however, is totally different.

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two has issued copyright takedown notices for several mods on LibertyCity.net, according to a post from the site. The mods either inserted content from older Rockstar games into newer ones, or combined content from similar Rockstar games into one larger game. The mods included material from Grand Theft Auto 3, San Andreas, Vice City, Mahunt, and Bully.

This has been a legally active year for Take-Two, starting with takedown notices for reverse-engineered versions of GTA3 and Vice City. Those projects were later restored. Since then, Take-Two has issued takedowns for mods that move content from older Grand Theft Auto games into GTA5, as well as mods that combine older games from the GTA3 generation into one. That lead to a group of modders preemptively taking down their 14-year-old mod for San Andreas in case they were next on Take-Two’s list.

All of this is partially notable because it’s new. Like many games released for the PC, the GTA series has enjoyed a healthy modding community. And Rockstar, previously, has largely left this modding community alone. Which is generally smart, as mods such as the ones the community produces are fantastic ways to both keep a game fresh as it ages and lure in new players to the original game by enticing them with mods that meet their particular interests. I’ll never forget a Doom mod that replaced all of the original MIDI soundtrack files with MIDI versions of 90’s alternative grunge music. That mod caused me to play Doom all over again from start to finish.

But now Rockstar Games has flipped the script and is busily taking these fan mods down. Why? Well, no one is certain, but likely for the most obvious reason of all.

One reason a company might become more concerned with this kind of copyright infringement is that it’s planning to release a similar product and wants to be sure that its claim to the material can’t be challenged. It’s speculative at this point, but that tracks with the rumors we heard earlier this year that Take-Two is working on remakes of the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games.

In other words, Rockstar appears to be completely happy to reap all the benefits from the modding community right up until the moment it thinks it can make more money with re-releases, at which point the company cries “Copyright!” The company may well be within its rights to operate that way, but why in the world would the modding community ever work on Rockstar games again?

Filed Under: copyright, gta, modders, video games
Companies: rockstar games

Take-Two Opposes Trademark For An Entertainment Company Running An Axe-Throwing Facility

from the bullseye dept

When it comes to my writing about trademark and intellectual property issues, there is perhaps no more flummoxing company than Take-Two Interactive. Why? Well, because the company is simultaneously the victim of a ton of stupid disputes, and also a purveyor of stupid disputes. On the one hand, we’ve defended Take-Two when it has been the victim of spurious claims brought against it by The Pinkerton Agency, Lindsay Lohan, and a handful of tattoo artists over athlete depictions in video games. On the other hand, we’ve slapped back at Take-Two when it has taken down modding tools for its games that have been around for years and years, or when the company decides to file lawsuits over fan-projects. The point is that when it comes to the pain brought by overly protectionist IP activities, Take-Two is a company that should know better, but acts as though it doesn’t.

This can often times go to ridiculous lengths, such as when Take-Two opposes the trademark for Rockstar Axe Throwing, LLC, because “Rockstar.”

Applicant Rockstar Axe Throwing filed its application in Class 41 for “Entertainment in the nature of axe throwing competitions; Instruction in the nature of hatchet and axe throwing lessons; Providing sports facilities for hatchet and axe throwing. Take-Two Interactive is “a leading worldwide developer, marketer, and publisher of interactive entertainment, including software, video games, computer games, mobile games,” and other goods and services. Rockstar Games is a subsidiary of Take-Two.

That paragraph is really all you need to know. These companies aren’t in the same industries, aren’t competing for customers, and the existence of the defendant is wholly unlikely to result in any customer confusion. Axe throwing: need we say more?

But, just to cover all of the bases, Take-Two also complains in its opposition about the Rockstar Axe Throwing, LLC logo.

Take-Two has marks that comprise or contain “the term ROCKSTAR and/ or prominently featuring the letter ‘R’ combined with a star design, used alone or with other words or designs…

The logos for the two companies aren’t similar. Like, at all.

Argue those logos are similar if you want, but you’re wrong, you know you’re wrong, and you’re probably in need of psychiatric care. On top of their being dissimilar, there is that whole “Axe Throwing” text right in the logo. If that isn’t enough to ward off anyone who might wander into an axe-throwing facility thinking it was associated with Grand Theft Auto, I can’t imagine what would be.

This, again, is where it gets really frustrating. There is zero reason for Take-Two to have undertaken this opposition. Zero. And yet it did, despite being on the receiving end itself of other ridiculous attempts at IP maximilism. Why?

Filed Under: axe throwing, trademark
Companies: rockstar games, take two interactive

Rockstar Joins Other Publishers In Misusing Copyright Law To Go After Cheat Developers For GTA5

from the attack-the-hack dept

For some time now, we’ve noted a troubling trend in the video games industry. That trend would be publishers trying to twist copyright law into a pretzel that allows them sue makers of cheat software for copyright infringement. This novel application of copyright law has been piloted by Blizzard and Epic Games in the past. Both company’s theory of the case for copyright infringement revolves around their games being licensed instead of sold, with the EULA being broken by utilizing cheat software. If the EULA is broken and the cheat-maker still makes use of the game, they do so without a license. Therefore, copyright infringement.

This, of course, is not how copyright law is supposed to work. Instead, the point of the law is to prevent unauthorized copying of the product, which is absolutely not the practical result of what these cheat-makers are doing. And, yet, the trend continues, with Rockstar Games winning a summary judgement in the UK against two individuals who developed cheats for Grand Theft Auto 5.

At the Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court, Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive filed a complaint against several people connected to the now-defunct “Epsilon” cheat. Epsilon was a so-called ‘mod menu’ which offered players significant advantages. The game companies reportedly shut down the cheat in 2018 and identified five men connected to it. They were accused of copyright infringement by creating and distributing the software.

Three of the five settled with Rockstar out of court. The other two, however, defended themselves by both noting that they included a disclaimer of liability to those making use of their software and that the tools they used to make their cheats are widely and publicly available on the internet. The court didn’t buy either argument and found for Rockstar in summary judgement. The court did likewise on breach of contract (the EULA) and inducement to breach that contract, except on the former for one defendent, who is a minor.

All in all, the court ruled in favor of Rockstar and Take-Two, granting summary judgment for copyright infringement against the two men. This means that the case won’t go to trial.

Both defendants were also accused of (inducement of) breach of contract and breach of contract. The court sided with the game companies here as well, except for the breach of contract claim against one of the two, who was a minor at the time of the offense.

Left unexamined appears to be why any of this is actually copyright infringement to begin with. And, if the court truly thinks it is, why the entire modding ecosystem isn’t suddenly one big cesspool of copyright infringement. The law doesn’t care whether a game is online or not. Either mods are appropriate fodder for copyright law or they are not.

One wonders if companies like Rockstar understand the potential harm they are doing to their industry by going down this road.

Filed Under: cheats, copyright, eula, grand theft auto 5
Companies: rockstar games, take two interactive