The BBC’s attempts at making a film about Grand Theft Auto are under threat from Rockstar’s Publishing house Take-Two Interactive, who have just launched a lawsuit.
The show/film/documentary which was pegged to star that guy from Harry Potter and Hudson from Aliens and revolve around the making of Grand Theft Auto and the Hot Coffee controversy over GTA: San Andreas.
But the folks over at Take-Two Interactive aren’t quite as keen for this as everyone assumed, they has issued a statement complaining of trademark infringement by the BBC: ‘Take-Two Interactive has filed suit against the BBC for trademark infringement based on their movie currently titled “Game Changer” as it relates to Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto video game series,’.
‘While holders of the trademarks referenced in the film title and its promotion, Rockstar Games has had no involvement with this project. Our goal is to ensure that our trademarks are not misused in the BBC’s pursuit of an unofficial depiction of purported events related to Rockstar Games.
‘We have attempted multiple times to resolve this matter with the BBC without any meaningful resolution. It is our obligation to protect our intellectual property and unfortunately in this case litigation was necessary.’
It’s a bit of a hit for the BBC as they already began filming of the drama last month, with Daniel Radcliffe playing Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser and Bill Paxton cast as disbarred lawyer Jack Thompson. Luckily for the BBC they have enough of us hard working Tax Payers money to just shrug this lawsuit off and carry on anyway, because we all really need to see this.
Take-Two are well within their right and have a perfectly valid case for litigation, the BBC may be backed by the government but they are not exempt from copyright Law as they appear to assume they are. Personally I hope Take-Two and Rockstar take them for all they can and this show never sees the light of day. But that’s just me.