Where's my mod? (Patreon)

Hi! Maybe you just landed for the first time on my Patreon page (welcome!!), or perhaps you've been a supporter for a long time (thank you so much!!), but you might be wondering the same thing: where is the download?

Unfortunately, on July 6, 2022, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., parent company of Rockstar Games, Inc. and 2K Games, Inc., saw fit to issue a DMCA notice against me and my creations. Their reasons are anybody's guess, because no-one has been able to reach any Take-Two representative in order to find out what alleged copyright violations they found in my flatscreen-to-VR conversion software. Among those who tried and failed to establish contact with Take-Two are: myself, The Verge, Kotaku, UploadVR, Rock Paper Shotgun...

Some believe that they just can't stand their paying customers being able to play in VR if they don't directly squeeze out additional profit from it (beyond the price of the game that is, since my mods only work with the original titles). Others are speculating that Rockstar might be about to launch some VR port of their own and wants to pre-emptively snuff out competition. I have no idea; as I said, they seem to believe that they are well above the need to communicate with us mere mortals.

Anyway, since Patreon was threatening to suspend my account and that would have killed off all my VR mods for other games too, for the time being I chose to sweep out anything that could be even remotely connected or related to games by Rockstar and 2K.

Be patient: in a few hours I should be able to attach here a new version of the mod which removes support for all the titles under dispute, and allows you to play again. That is my priority at the moment. As soon as I can give you back access to the (crippled) mod, I will add to this post, or create a new one, in order to let you know what my position is and how best I think we should act as a community in order to get back what we worked so hard for.

In the meantime though, behold the new, awesomely restyled banner and avatar (courtesy of a Patron who wishes to remain anonymous, but man, I'm so thankful!) and please: don't panic! Especially in some YouTube comment sections, on Reddit, on related Discord servers, I've already seen people saying things like "Let's pirate the mods!", or "I will put the old version on a public server!", or "Let's post them everywhere and torrent them"...

That's not cool, man.  Stealing my work (which is the fruit of many Patrons pledging their own hard-earned money) just because greedy corporations want their corporate wallets to become even fatter is probably NOT the best way to go about this, what do you think?

Update 1: Okay, I was just now on the Pimax forums and people are already panicking, so let me add a few words.

I seriously don’t think that as soon as a big fat corporation begins to put the squeeze on us peasants, the correct reaction is to madly start stealing from each other.

The correct way to go about this is to contact Take-Two, Rockstar and/or 2K directly using any channels available (forums, support channels, direct emails, Twitter, LinkedIn, ...) and ask for them to (re)consider the matter and allow access to the mods. The more people do that, and at the same time, the higher the chance that it will penetrate the corporate wall of indifference.

Please include the all-important information that my mods don’t work without the original software, and they are my original creations, not using or leveraging portions of code/assets belonging to the original IP owners.

Remember that it is your legal right, as paying customers of Take-Two, Rockstar and 2K, to use the games you bought in conjunction with any other piece of software, and that their DMCA bomb is preventing you from exercising your consumer rights.

Some people are rambling about moving this onto the Dark Web, switching to Bitcoin payments, and so on.

NO.

This needs to be solved legally, and in the light of day. Acting like criminals when they are the ones violating our rights is the cowardly way to go, and it would also be quite foolish.

I'm not speaking only about my mods by the way. This problem has become too widespread. A Google search for "take two" "dmca" returns more than 600K hits.

It's not a question of money. Take-Two and Rockstar have pulled the trigger on dozens of mods which were completely free. And on the opposite side, they are perfectly happy with https://www.patreon.com/razedmods making more than $100K per month selling ONE mod, specifically for GTA V, that does exactly what my mods won't: replacing some of the assets and files in the game with modified versions, and using all sorts of copyrighted logos, screenshots, trademarks to promote the mod.

It's not a question of "unauthorized" mods. Rockstar uses DLSS technology licensed from NVIDIA. Yet their abusive launcher prevents you from exercising your customer right to use the latest, improved version of the DLSS component (which NVIDIA distributes) in conjunction with the legal copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 that you bought. It will prevent you from running the game, leaving you no recourse and no control. In Story Mode: I'm not speaking of online multiplayer.

It's not a question of VR. VorpX (for some crazy random happenstance, I'm sure) has specific mods for GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2, and it's a paid-for injection tool that hooks into the games, yet it hasn't been targeted.

DMCA needs to be fixed. As it stands, it's nothing but an oppression tool. Patreon doesn't implement any functionality for pinning a comment (that dark magic was known to the ancient sorcerers of any forum software around the beginning of the century, but it's been lost to the depths of Web 3.0), so I'm reposting here a very good comment by Natasha Owens:

For the Americans: Go write an email to your congressional representative.
The DMCA is an easily abused hammer that can (and often is) misused by companies to harm users in arbitrary and unfair ways. Companies can and have abused this to attack content creators like Luke here for any reason they feel like, including "they said bad things about us"
Complaining to your representatives to have the DMCA Fixed to be less one sided and easily abused is the only long term solution.
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative#:~:text=If%20you%20know%20who%20your,the%20U.S.%20House%20switchboard%20operator

Make your voice heard, people! I'm doing the best I can, both for VR and for modding in general, but one person is a fly on their Lamborghini windshield. Many people together can stop the car from its power-mad killing spree.