Fanmade Red Dead Redemption PC enhancement project shut down by lawsuit from Take-Two
A fan-project aiming to enhance the original Red Dead Redemption's visuals via emulation has been cancelled, after a lawsuit was filed by the copyright holders. Initially announced in August of this year, a video was posted to YouTube showing footage of Red Dead Redemption running on PC through Xbox 360 emulator Xenia, boasting improvements such as better textures, shaders, weather effects, and other graphical tweaks. Development on the project, which was titled "Red Dead Redemption: Damned Enhancement" lasted until September, where progress was halted, until resuming again sometime in November. On December 26th, Take-Two, who originally published and owned the IP rights to Red Dead Redemption, filed a legal complaint, intending to cancel the enhancement project.
Take-Two brings this action to maintain control over its world-famous video games in the face of Wyckoff’s publicly stated intent to distribute unauthorized software files that would dramatically change the content of Take-Two’s video games. Those unauthorized changes include but are not limited to importing the entire game map of 2010’s Red Dead Redemption into the 2018 game Red Dead Redemption II, enhancing graphics and visuals in Take-Two’s Red Dead Redemption game, and allowing players to play an enhanced version of the game on personal computer (“PCs”), a platform for which Take-Two itself has not yet released the Read Dead Redemption game.
The publisher claimed that this fan-project would interfere with a possible market for an official PC port of Red Dead Redemption 1 in the future, even though the company does not have any current intention to release such. They also claim that his modding infringes upon Take-Two's rights, stating that Wyckoff, the developer, was contacted numerous times by their legal team, and never responded to takedown requests, leading to the company taking legal recourse. Besides Wyckoff, ten other defendants were also involved in the lawsuit, though they remain unnamed as "John Doe(s)".
Wyckoff has knowingly, intentionally, and willfully infringed Take-Two’s rights and will continue to do so upon the release of the Infringing Programs unless enjoined and, upon information and belief, Wyckoff already has profited by violating Take-Two’s rights and User Agreement. As a result, Take-Two has been left with no choice but to file this lawsuit seeking injunctive relief and damages that it will suffer as a result of Wyckoff’s direct and contributory copyright infringement under the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq., as well as for his breach of Take-Two’s User Agreement and his tortious interference with Take-Two’s contracts with other Take-Two game players using his modifications.
Currently, Wyckoff has cancelled the enhancement pack, and his other RDR mod, "RDRII Project", saying that he is in talks with Take-Two to settle the legal matter.
Source: Legal Document filed in the State of New York (via TorrentFreak)
Tags: [GAME=/game/red-dead-redemption.434]Red Dead Redemption[/GAME]