Take-Two Interactive has taken down two popular GTA reverse-engineering projects, re3 and reVC, for the second time,
Re3 and reVC can essentially be viewed as upgraded version of GTA 3 and GTA Vice City, jumping into the game's source codes and improving them in several key ways, such as adding a map to GTA 3's pause menu, no loading screens when moving between islands, widescreen support, the ability to control your field of view and controller compatibility, amongst improved visual effects.
Earlier in the year, Take-Two made a copyright claim against the project, which was fought off with a counterclaim from the project leads. GitHub then reinstated the code without any response from Take-Two. Project lead "aap" spoke to Eurogamer about the situation and said, "We figured we have a good case for fair use on the grounds that we are improving and fixing the game as well as bringing it to new platforms".
As of last month, Take-Two has sued the project leaders, claiming they "sought unlawfully to copy, adapt, and distribute to the public infringing source code for two classic GTA titles: Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City". The counterclaim is also mentioned as, "knowingly filed bad faith counter-notifications that materially misrepresented the legality of their content, apparently claiming that because they allegedly 'reverse engineered' the Games' source code, they somehow cannot be liable for copyright infringement."
Because of the lawsuit, Take-Two has issued a second takedown request to GitHub to remove re3 and reVC, to which it has agreed, meaning that re3 and reVC are no longer on the service. It looks like this second time will be permanent, considering the lawsuit. This takedown probably shouldn't come as too much as a surprise considering how many GTA fan projects have been taken down by Take-Two over the past few months. The general belief is that they're being removed because a remastered GTA Trilogy is on the way and could possibly be releasing in November of this year.