WoW private server gets owned by Blizzard

[The_Real_PlodeZ]

Massive judgment in World of Warcraft copyright infringement case

Mon Aug 16, 2010 @ 09:36AM PST
By Eriq Gardner

A federal court has thrown down the gauntlet against the operator of a private server used to play the MMORP game World of Warcraft, awarding Vivendi subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment a staggering $89 million.

The defendant in the case, Scapegaming, earned about $3 million in profits collecting micropayments from users on the unauthorized network. A third-party WoW fansite calls private servers "shady" and a violation of the game's terms of use, operated to allow players to run around with omnipotent powers and cheat the game environment.

Blizzard sued the company and its main operator, Alyson Reeves, last October. The lawsuit followed aggressive action against other third-party operators for violating end-user license agreements in an attempt to profit from the cheating. But decisions by courts, including the latest against Scapegaming, make clear that violations of EULAs on games such as WoW constitute copyright infringement.

In a decision last week, the judge awarded Blizzard $3,053,339 in profits from the improper private server, $63,600 in attorneys fees and a whopping $85,478,600 in statutory damages for willful infringement.

http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/...-decision.html

[ShellinShitakaMad_doll]

wow, i never thought blizzard woud do anything about private servers

[camaz0tz]

ROFL scape got owned...i used to play that

[Dark3lf]

And how on earth do they think anyone could pay that much?
"They made a WoW private server, now let's fuck up their lives because Blizz is butthurt."
Only in the U.S. that's all I can say, lol.

[easty]

I'm gonna just say that they'll never be able to pay that off.

[The_Real_PlodeZ]

$3m in profits... for a private server...

[Licky]

Well i guess those are server which accepted $ its not allwed only if u want to donate just for fun its ok as like i know

[camaz0tz]

Well i guess those are server which accepted $ its not allwed only if u want to donate just for fun its ok as like i know

I know scape only has(or had lol) "donations" with "rewards for donating". Wording like that doesn't get around anything. Fact is they're earning money based off a game which they do not own and Blizzard does.

[Magyk]

For 3 mil he should of asked some legal advice regarding the server. Im not entirely sure on the wow issue on this, but there was a talk on some huge private server networkz in taiwan. They had massive servers of wow, l2, perfectlulworld and dozens of other games.

Since the wow fan-base is rather large in asialand, im guessing that their wow servers had around 1 mil players or so. Dunno how many ppl wow server configs and shit can handle, but they were supposed to have tens of servers there. Their l2 playerbase was same as SEA and western servers put together, so around 700k-1mil, which is a-mutherfraking-lot.

Thing is, that they were making huge cash off of it. At that time, their system was legally so well protected that ncsoft, nhn and couple of others made a joint effort to shut it down. It ended with them getting their lawyers milked and the private server huge publicity (read: more players).

Their micro-transactions system was later copied by ncsoft lol.


On a sidenote, cama u should remember how much cash Duke was raking in from frienz. MUO servers there were a goldmine.

[iAbuseHell]

yeah scape was the #1 private server (highest population, definitely not the best server ^^) it had a top of 36.000 people online at the same time. donators where heavily overpowered.. with 95% dodge and stuff.

its pretty simple.. blizzard sees that a server makes enough money so its profitable enough to sue them.

i would have done the same for sure :P

[3xiT]

i remeber Bg scape , server was laggy as hell used to play it alot 12k players online m around peak times , remeber a guldie who played one of the ohters 2 and been playing sinds started he said i spended more then 800 dolllars for donation gear,

but 3mil does not suprise me that mutch tbh, i remeber l2extreme when donatoin was back online , 1st 3 days 25k, $ made ,

[Lvzbel]

This is crazy I wonder what happens now with the owner of that priv server

[haunted88]

wow, i never thought blizzard woud do anything about private servers

same for me omg.. but they made a nice deal hahaha

[loveya]

He should make another private server to pay that off

[Electr1c]

like guy above said only in america...