The publisher of the Grand Theft Auto series, Take-Two Interactive, has issued a cease and desist order against the popular modding tool OpenIV . The news comes as a particular surprise to the Grant Theft Auto modding community, especially given that the tool has been in operation for over a decade.
OpenIV’s lead developer, GooD-NTS, alleges that the cease and desist case was declared by Take-Two on June 5th 2017. Within a statement on the tool’s official website, the developer states that the issue is due to security concerns as the program allows “third parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violation Take-Two’s rights.”
Despite the seemingly rash decision by Take-Two to stop the use of OpenIV, the team behind the tool have decided not to take any action or to stop its distribution immediately. GooD-NTS elaborates on the team’s decision by saying “Yes, we can go to court and yet again prove that modding is fair use and our actions are legal. 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.”
This decision will come as a big blow to the modding community especially given the sheer flexibility that OpenIV provided in terms of its multifaceted use. From video-editing to adding a multitude of features to GTA-V including weapons, race courses, missions and vehicles, its removal is likely to cause a backlash from fans.
