Bully Online's project lead previously dismissed concerns about legal trouble from Rockstar and Take-Two, but if this is what it looks like, he may have spoken too soon
Unfortunately our copyright system mandates that copyright owners must defend their IP from infringement, and making money off of an early access mod that revolves around copyrighted materials you don’t own is definitely infringement.
That said, it’s worth pointing out that, while a fully free version was in the books, Bully Online had a paid early access release that may have drawn scrutiny from the IP holder’s lawyers.
This wasn’t like the GTA online mods. You couldn’t host your own server and had to pay for access to theirs. They never said rockstar forced them to take it down either from what I have seen, it might be they just decided they weren’t making enough money.
The article clearly states that the mod only allowed paying users to actually play multiplayer. So the mod devs were clearly looking to make some money off of it.
It’s all fun and games until you try to make money from someone else’s IP
Lord forbid developers try to monetize their labor on a long dead game by adding new functionality
Unfortunately our copyright system mandates that copyright owners must defend their IP from infringement, and making money off of an early access mod that revolves around copyrighted materials you don’t own is definitely infringement.
US copyright law is a sham, and only exists to benefit the ruling class
No lies detected
who was trying to make money
From the article:
This wasn’t like the GTA online mods. You couldn’t host your own server and had to pay for access to theirs. They never said rockstar forced them to take it down either from what I have seen, it might be they just decided they weren’t making enough money.
The article clearly states that the mod only allowed paying users to actually play multiplayer. So the mod devs were clearly looking to make some money off of it.