Remember recently we had a release of the reverse-engineered GTA III and Vice City code that worked well on Linux? Which was then promptly taken down by a DMCA notice? Well, it's back.

Not the original mind you, on GitHub has returned as the forker issued a DMCA Counter Notice and intends to actually fight it. According to , New Zealand-based developer named Theo is taking a stand against this DMCA behaviour and has managed to get GitHub to restore their fork.

"It would appear that the code in the re3 repo is reverse engineered, not a straight decompilation. I believe Take-Two’s claim to be wholly incorrect if this is the case, since the code may be functionally identical, but not exactly identical, they hold no claim to the code. I do not agree with how Take-Two handles events like this," Theo adds, referencing an when Take-Two targeted the OpenIV modding tool. "Taking down code that does not belong to them is abhorrent."

This isn't GitHub doing either side any favours though, this is of course as a result of Theo directly taking a stand as per the which state it needs to be put back in 10-14 days once a counter notice has been received so GitHub are just following the rules here.

Honestly it amazes me companies, bigger ones especially, don't see how these projects can benefit them and instead send the lawyers. You still need to legally own each game, so it can even help boost sales and gain a renewed interest in the classics without Take-Two needing to lift a finger. So far, no reply from Take-Two on it so it might even remain online this time around.

Find it on .