Rockstar has no worries. Mods have worries.

There's been a lot of foaming about the blood in the water for Rockstar. Hilary Clinton and a certain Floridian whacko lawyer have gotten together. Game developers are decrying Rockstar for making them look bad. Rockstar's PR efforts have been questioned widely if not simply openly mocked.

For the record, I think the truth is somewhere in between Rockstar's releases and the mod author claims. And it should be noted that all the mod author has to do is release his source code to publically solve this quandry. Why shouldn't he, it's not like he could sell it.

Some people might read that and say, why can't he? Well, that's because by installing the game he agreed to an End User License Agreement, or EULA, which almost certainly states that he can't profit on software related to GTA without permission from Rockstar. This agreement has been the legal barrier for the mod community since around the time mods began. You can play with the code, but don't try to act like you have a license to the engine.

However, the Hot Coffee mod may not even be protected by that. Simply releasing a tool to hack into the code may break the EULA, as has been in the case before. Eidos attempted to crack down on the notorious Lara Craft nude patch and Tecmo cracked down on nude DOA's under these auspices.

The point being that while it seems like the cannibals are swarming, Rockstar isn't in much hot water here. Every game shipped today has protections for hacks like this and wonderful laws like the DCMA only make them stronger. Even if Rockstar provided animations of big bouncing boobies, it's not their fault that a user broke the EULA.

So people like Hilary have no case. Which is fine for them. They don't need one. They just need soundbites and reasons to pound podiums for a while. It's not like they're going to actually have to do anything about it, other than win brownie points.

The real losers here will be the mod community. While people like Valve and Epic will undoubtably try to hold onto their cash cows and folks like Will Wright will continue to try and push forth "user worlds", most companies will look at all of this hubbub and at their next board meeting decide that being permissive with users and their content isn't worth the legal flak. They won't allow any dev time for mod tools and they'll double check their EULAs to allow crackdowns just in case.

And if these people who are currently lamblasting decide to turn their gaze towards the mod community being unrestricted, there will be real hell to pay.