Blizzard Sues Private Server Company, Awarded $88M

Tinuva

Tinuva

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"A private server company, Scapegaming (aka Alyson Reeves), was ordered to pay Blizzard Entertainment over $88 million in damages after losing a lawsuit that was concluded last week. Scapegaming was operating unauthorized World of Warcraft servers and using a micropayment system to collect money from the servers' user base, which according to the lawsuit amounted to just over $3 million. $85 million of that settlement was for statutory damages, and surprisingly only $63,000 in attorney's fees."

Source: /.
 
Tinuva said:
"A private server company, Scapegaming (aka Alyson Reeves), was ordered to pay Blizzard Entertainment over $88 million in damages after losing a lawsuit that was concluded last week. Scapegaming was operating unauthorized World of Warcraft servers and using a micropayment system to collect money from the servers' user base, which according to the lawsuit amounted to just over $3 million. $85 million of that settlement was for statutory damages, and surprisingly only $63,000 in attorney's fees."

Source: /.
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The only reason they got sued is because they actually made money from the server. And I'm glad Blizzard sued their arses off :) How can you make money off someone else's work? I'm all for piracy but not if you want to make a profit from it.
 
Pitbull said:
The only reason they got sued is because they actually made money from the server. And I'm glad Blizzard sued their arses off :) How can you make money off someone else's work? I'm all for piracy but not if you want to make a profit from it.
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Of coarse that is the reason, I can read the English language :P

Still posted it because it shows they do look at each case and will retaliate where necessary.
 
I think Blizzard is completely and fully aware of the difference between "rogue" servers that basically market the game and "rogue" servers that are stealing Blizzard customers.
Don't assume that "free to play" will be ignored by Blizzard either.
 
Who in their right mind would pay for a private server, lol, and besides, were the Blizz lawyers bored or something.Does a company that nets a minimum of 150 millions dollars a month(excluding game sales) have nothing better to do?
 
Joy-Energiser said:
Who in their right mind would pay for a private server, lol, and besides, were the Blizz lawyers bored or something.Does a company that nets a minimum of 150 millions dollars a month(excluding game sales) have nothing better to do?
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like the people here have been saying, pirate (free) servers are advertising. you've heard the saying all publicity is good publicity (except for BP that is) the moment u start making money out of something that is copyrighted and trademarked (almost 20 years at that) expect to get bent over and *****ed in the arse. good for blizzard. and yes, they are making the worlds most popluar games, but when some fools are coming along and stealing what is due to them.... then they, as do all other companies fyi, have all the time in the world to nail them to the blackboard in court
 
You have to wonder whether Blizzard's discovery of private servers in country X makes them consider setting up a local mirror or less? On the one hand it could prove profitable to try coerce private server players over to a legit one but on the other hand they the players on those private servers are probably too cheap to do so. And I don't blame them, it seems the minute something becomes 'local' there are more fingers in the revenue stream pie and that leads to higher prices.
 
Seems to have been WoWscape.
Must of had the biggest gathering of stupid people ever to be sued for 84mil.
 
The fact that this company charged people doesn't make it any more or any less legal. Just more likely that they will be sued. It's still illegal to host private servers using the branding of someone else.
 
Joy-Energiser said:
Who in their right mind would pay for a private server, lol, and besides, were the Blizz lawyers bored or something.Does a company that nets a minimum of 150 millions dollars a month(excluding game sales) have nothing better to do?
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Correction, its now $235M so im pretty sure it was wroth their while
 
Joy-Energiser said:
Who in their right mind would pay for a private server, lol, and besides, were the Blizz lawyers bored or something.Does a company that nets a minimum of 150 millions dollars a month(excluding game sales) have nothing better to do?
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Haha you don't think it's worth a company's while to make 50% extra in one month for a bit of time in court?

Someone did say they make more, but still, $88M is a nice bonus for them.
 
HTC_guy said:
retarded private servers... sue their pants right off! :D
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I do remember the issues with wowscape back in the day thou, when i used to help on the mangos emulator project, there was a guy by the name of burlex, very smart but also very stupid at the same time. Wowscape used to be free until some of the guys from scape couldnt take the costs and growth of the server, thats where alyson reeves(peyton) stepped in, and that was there down fall. But i am laughing at the amount she has to pay, pay back is seriously a bitch, when its 80+M
 
I don't think they'll ever be able to pay it off, these peoples lives are effectively ruined. Good on you Blizz.
 
Watch them get an injunction to run the server until the 80mil is paid off :D
 
Blackhand said:
I don't think they'll ever be able to pay it off, these peoples lives are effectively ruined. Good on you Blizz.
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Well, that's what you get if you play with the big boys. If they didn't ask for money then Blizzard wouldn't have gone to the extreme like that.
 
Blackhand said:
I don't think they'll ever be able to pay it off, these peoples lives are effectively ruined. Good on you Blizz.
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Well I'd put it that they ruined their own lives with some poor decision making.
 
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