Illegal server owner gets sued.

That's hectic.

I haven't ever seen Blizzard sue a completely free server before though. One where the person running it, never makes any profit from running the server.
 
When it's stated rather plainly in the TOS when you install the game client it is hard to have sympathy for these people.

The operators of these servers looking to make money are parasites. Although Blizzard receives a boatload of money from subscriptions, the running costs must be on similar scale.

Additionally the projects that are formed to create the private servers are done by hobbyist developers. It has been the case on several occasions that the operators of these “Freemium” servers do not contribute a single line of code or effort back into these projects.
Of course the legality of these projects is a foregone conclusion. But they are a fun bit of code to poke your nose in :P
 
Esea said:
erm they sold loot for erm cash...
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Just reread my post and see that doesn't convey what I was trying to say properly.

I meant, that this is a paid server in some way and they got sued. I've never seen a completely free server sued before and I'm sure blizzard knows that they're out there. Just wondering if they don't care as long as the free server owners aren't profiting or if it's possibly that they won't be awarded such a large sum in court.
 
Thats just stupid, F Blizzard. $85 million is just silly, its just a stupid amount. Get her to pay all of the profits, and some more, but thats it. Blizzard is just getting vindictive now.
 
Ancalagon said:
Thats just stupid, F Blizzard. $85 million is just silly, its just a stupid amount. Get her to pay all of the profits, and some more, but thats it. Blizzard is just getting vindictive now.
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What's even worse is that she has to pay interest on the amount. Let's say we live in a magical land where interests on loans are 10%.

85mil * 10% = $8 500 000 / Year.

There are very very few people who will have enough money to cover the interest, never mind the full amount. Point is, if you don't want to be paying off Blizzard for the rest of your life, don't run an illegal server :|
 
It seems that in the cases where they have pursued action their intention is to leave a huge impact. (Perhaps their lawyers are Deathwing and Company?)

I think Blizzard know that given the number of servers that there are out there the cost to pursue every one of them would outweigh the payoff. Also it would result in what I would like to dub "Lars Ulrich" syndrome. Remember when Metallica brought down the hammer on Napster, how if anything it just generated a LOT of negative sentiment towards the band.
Napster users were in the wrong, but when a band with commercial success of Metallica (smart bands keep their merchandising rights) bitches about how they're being turned into paupers. Well it's going to rub people up the wrong way.

Granted both Blizzard and Metallica are completely in their rights to sue anyone who steals their property (intellectual or otherwise). It's all about picking the right battles to fight.
 
bullfrog said:
Just reread my post and see that doesn't convey what I was trying to say properly.

I meant, that this is a paid server in some way and they got sued. I've never seen a completely free server sued before and I'm sure blizzard knows that they're out there. Just wondering if they don't care as long as the free server owners aren't profiting or if it's possibly that they won't be awarded such a large sum in court.
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I think that Blizzard does shut down private servers from time to time when they find them. I'm not sure what criteria they use before deciding to shut a server down or leave it for later, considering it's not too difficult to find a free server. I've never heard of Blizzard suing free server operators though. It might be because it's not really worth it to sue a free server operator, but I think they will get more serious if a free server ignore attempts by Blizzard to shut it down.

I agree that the amount is extreme, but I don't have any sympathy for the owner. What she did was stupid and she should have expected that Blizzard will do something about it.
 
Strange how people play on illegal free servers and then pay for items. Backwards if you ask me
 
Murdoc said:
Strange how people play on illegal free servers and then pay for items. Backwards if you ask me
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Depends where you're comming from. Similarly to buying gold, some people are willing to equate the time they would have spent obtaining items/gold to currency value. Some people don't see the value in paying for time that they're not playing, so they would pay for progression.
In case of Private servers your point is even more valid in that ultimately they're paying (be it for access or items) to play in a half baked Azeroth.
But this is not a dicussion for the business models, so before I go on a tangent derailing this conversation :)

[Opinion]
As for the majority of Private Servers, I think Blizzard views it as fan fictions. That they cannot stop every single person from derriving works from their material (it is evident Blizzard did this from existing sources). I think the "line" is claiming ownership of these derived works, regardless of profit.
Defending the point of inspiration vs. theft is up to the legal machine.
[/Opinion]

There are a series of enlightening articles on wow.joystiq.com "The Lawbringer" which tackles legal issues and WoW.
 
Yeah there was a thread about this a while back here.

They made money from the server and got busted, gg.
 
if you wanna steal and advertise what your doing you need one of these

/facepalm
 
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