GTA Online OpenIV Mod Gets Cease & Desist from Take-Two
OpenIV, the most well-known and well-liked mods for GTA V Online, was forced to discontinue. Take-Two hit them with a cease-and-desist order, because the mod could allegedly be used for harassment of other players and otherwise interfering with the game. The GTA Online community isn’t to happy about the situation.
GTA publisher Take-Two sent a cease-and-desist order to OpenIV, the most popular mod for GTA Online. The lead designer GooD-NTS took to the GTA forums to announce that OpenIV will be shutting down completely. He explains that mods have so far been kinda a legal gray area, and that Take-Two has basically escalated the situation. Here’s an excerpt from the post:
Yes, we can go to court and yet again prove that modding is fair use and our actions are legal. Yes, we could. But we decided not to.
Going to court will take at least few months of our time and huge amount of efforts, and, at best, we’ll get absolutely nothing. Spending time just to restore status quo is really unproductive, and all the money in the world can’t compensate the loss of time. So, we decided to agree with their claims and we’re stopping distribution of OpenIV.
It was a hard decision, but when any modding activity has been declared illegal, we can’t see any possibilities to continue this process, unless top management of Take-Two company makes an official statement about modding, which can be used in court.
The mod still works for those that downloaded it before, apparently, but it’s doubtful how long that will last. A short time after the post went live, Rockstar Games chimed in on the situation. They released a comment to PC Gamer, explaining the situation. Here it is in its entirety.
Take-Two’s actions were not specifically targeting single player mods. Unfortunately OpenIV enables recent malicious mods that allow harassment of players and interfere with the GTA Online experience for everybody. We are working to figure out how we can continue to support the creative community without negatively impacting our players.
Needless to say, the GTA Online community has been in a state of uproar since Take-Two’s announcement. Many have been pointing out that OpenIV was only a single-player mod. Also, this decision will do next to nothing to curb the rampant cheating and other foul play on GTA Online. It will be interesting to see which way this story will go.
