The creators of Open IV, one of the most popular modding tools for GTA V, are shutting their services down. They claim they have received a cease and desist from Take-Two Interactive after nearly 10 years of operation. According to a post on the official OpenIV website, the alleged cease and desist came on June 5th 2017. The supposed problem, OpenIV’s creators say, is that the program allows “third parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violation Take-Two’s rights.” After discussing their options, the team behind the tool says they decided it just wasn't worth their time to fight back.“Yes, we can go to court and yet again prove that modding is fair use and our actions are legal,” creator GooD-NTS wrote. “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.”
Accordingly, when players now try to use OpenIV, they see this message:
View attachment upload_2017-6-15_23-34-29.gif
The tool is no longer available for download, and will no longer receive updates. UPDATE 6/15 7:58PM: Here’s Rockstar Games, confirming the situation:
“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.”
Accordingly, when players now try to use OpenIV, they see this message:
View attachment upload_2017-6-15_23-34-29.gif
The tool is no longer available for download, and will no longer receive updates. UPDATE 6/15 7:58PM: Here’s Rockstar Games, confirming the situation:
“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.”
