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Lineage 2: FBI and NCsoft Stop Illegal Servers
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
NCsoft has announced that they, in conjunction with the FBI, have closed down a group that has been fraudulently providing Lineage 2 service to its customers. The investigation and subsequent raids focus around www.l2extreme.com. The website has since been replaced with an FBI Anti-Piracy Warning that clearly states that "This site has been seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigations" and that "The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000".
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Year long investigation results in raids in multiple search and seizure warrants; Individuals questioned in unauthorized game server scheme
AUSTIN, Texas, November 20, 2006 FBI Agents working in conjunction with officials from NCsofts® North American business successfully closed down a computer game operation alleged to be reaping profits by providing a fraudulent service to its players. The operation was closed down after multiple raids and interviews were conducted in various cities from California to Virginia.
Federal search warrants were served on owners of L2Extreme who were also questioned during the raid. L2Extreme was providing its users with unauthorized service and code for NCsofts online computer game, Lineage® II. The warrants enabled officials to halt L2Extremes operations while collecting further evidence in the course of the investigation.
The FBI estimates L2Extreme has up to 50,000 active users on its service. NCsoft estimates that monetary losses and damages from the operation are costing NCsoft millions of dollars per year.
L2Extreme advertised on its website, www.l2extreme.com, that more than half million registered users had subscribed to play.
Operations like this essentially are defrauding customers by stealing from companies like NCsoft, said Matt Esber, NCsoft North America general counsel. In the end those losses impact our customer support, product development, operational areas and ultimately they impact our player communities, most of which are trying to play games legitimately. This group in particular was downloading our version of the Lineage II software from our servers, costing us close to a million dollars in realized bandwidth costs during the period it was operational.
Weve taken this action because we strongly believe in defending the intellectual property rights that weve worked so hard to create. Were extremely pleased that the FBI has worked with us so diligently to bring this particular case to its current state and we want our customers to understand that we will continue to fight similar operations in the future in order to maintain the integrity of all NCsoft games.
The investigation into the L2Extreme operation is ongoing.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I'm not a fan of the grind in L2 so anything that makes less people play, is a good thing imo.
Shadowbane FTW
It is so much a better game - and it's free!
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It really only does a little good as you can find 100 other servers in Europe doing te same thing for people. NCSoft should have stopped this long ago when it was first reported. Now all they need to do is get rid of the 500 million bots playing, and a few other major factors and they might have a game worth playing.
Theft is theft. We all steal to a extent. Whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Whether or not people have the right to maintain the rights of code is debatable. What isnt debatable is that when you take enough money to be a burden, your a target. Its just the law of nature.
The operators of L2extreme brought it upon themselves when they tried to cheat/defraud NCsoft. They didn't spend millions of dollars designing and making Lineage2 so they have no right to the game. What they did was simply theft of the source code of the servers, and they simply got what they deserved. Maybe a few years jail time and a few thousand dollars fine would teach some people not to steal.
The title of this column should be, "FBI shuts down L2Extreme operation. Investigation ongoing." They didn't stop much.
To make it really clear selling virtual currency is NOT illegal in any sense of the definition. For something to be illegal it has to violate government's law. Software piracy on the other hand is illegal, very illegal in fact with penalties in the US being up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine (Title 17 of U.S.C.). Copyright laws are also upheld across the world in most civilized nations.
Virtual currency trading is a breach of private contract and would only be heard in a civil case (ie NCSoft vs IGE, etc). When a LAW is broken (ie something illegal was done) then it becomes (The State of California vs xxx or The United States of America vs xxx, etc, etc).
To my knowledge there are no US laws (or laws in any other nations) that prohibit the sale of virtual currency or items. MMORPG.com would never advertise for a company that did anything illegal...ever.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
By selling virtual money to profit from something that you own nothing of can be thrown in with the selling of virtual property that the game company has protected.
Selling money from a game can be defined as a few things till something is in the books for it alone. Do not be surprised to see Viviendu or NCSoft go after these folks in a court sometime soon. When people are able to make millions from selling the virtual product of another company without permission there is a problem.
I agree. I would love to see a ruling on this either way - the point is that there is none. Until a legal precident is set there really won't be any knowing. The bottom line is that at this moment it is not an illegal activity.
The truth is what coin farmers are selling is their time - nothing is being "taken" out of the game and nearly all coin is earned by people with an active, paid subscription and who are using the built in game mechanics to generate the coin/items and in game mechanics to trade the items. Because there is no rule against just "giving" or "gifting" money and items between players - it would likely be a hard case to say that well I am going to gift this coin to you and hey, since we are buds do you mind gifting me some cash in RL - which is *of course* no way related to this game?
I agree, it's all crazy stuff. I don't really care for it myself and typically harass farmers when I see them in the games I play. I can't stand Al Gore, John Kerry or Hillary Clinton - in fact their mere mention makes me ill, but I would sell them ad space on this site nonetheless ;-)
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
In the end those losses impact our customer support, product development, operational areas and ultimately they impact our player communities, most of which are trying to play games legitimately."
Too bad so many left to free servers because their poor customer support and management of their game. I support free servers when a comapny like NcSoft is running the show.
"Weve taken this action because we strongly believe in defending the intellectual property rights that weve worked so hard to create."
Yea, they worked hard ripping off images from Lodos and music from Harry Potter...wait they took out most of the music in C2./
Too bad NCSoft doesn't work so hard to prevent bots, hackers, and other cheaters from exploiting thier game and ruining it for many. I am not a fan of free servers, and I will never play on one. If a mmorpg is good, I will gladly pay for it. However, in L2's case, there are more crooks in NCSoft's subscription base than there are out there running free servers. This was a good thing, but it would have been better directed at the Chinese farmers, the botters, and the hackers of L2.
To make it really clear selling virtual currency is NOT illegal in any sense of the definition. For something to be illegal it has to violate government's law. Software piracy on the other hand is illegal, very illegal in fact with penalties in the US being up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine (Title 17 of U.S.C.). Copyright laws are also upheld across the world in most civilized nations.
Virtual currency trading is a breach of private contract and would only be heard in a civil case (ie NCSoft vs IGE, etc). When a LAW is broken (ie something illegal was done) then it becomes (The State of California vs xxx or The United States of America vs xxx, etc, etc).
To my knowledge there are no US laws (or laws in any other nations) that prohibit the sale of virtual currency or items. MMORPG.com would never advertise for a company that did anything illegal...ever.
Sadly this has yet to be tested in court. In my view, digital art work is no different than digital music. The latter cannot be legally reproduced and distributed without compensation to the musician. Likewise, digital art should not be reproduced and distributed without permission or compensation or both from the artist or company.
You can say one is still legal only because it hasn't been tested. It is still unethical in my opinion.
_____________________________
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Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
Those numbers about "costing them millions of dollars" per year is also BS. You don't know if they were going to play on NCSofts servers anyway. Its all theoretical. L2extreme's server was no near the same as NCsofts server, so you can't even compare them.
If you say stealing is stealing, then sure, you're right, but pretending you are hurt by a bunch of theoretical data is just bull.
To be honest, I doubt this action will result in any people currently playing on free servers switching to the official NCsoft servers if that's what they're hoping for. On the other hand, if they start mass banning the farmer bots and keep doing that as quickly as they return, put up a couple of "casual" servers with x2 & x4 leveling/drop rate and get some decent customer support going, then I'm sure they'll see some people make the switch. Sometimes a carrot is more effective than a stick. Unfortunately, in this case it would mean them actually having to do something rather than handing over the job to an army of lawyers.
Oh well... glad I'm not playing L2
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Hi,
Another classic example of companies going to the dark side of the force. If
you want more people buying your music or paying for your online games, offer
them something better than say "a homebrew server" vs "a server
full of botters".
You have failed once again to treat the problem instead of the symptoms, expect
further symptoms.
Im currently playing Eve Online and it truly offers something different with a
company focused on providing a gaming experience rather than a way to rip
people off on mass.
,
Oglem
There was, in part a pretty well written article(s) by a person named Keith Dawson about customers and the power they are able to wield today.
http://www.callcentermagazine.com/blog/archives/2006/11/super_empowered.html#more
It shows the good examples and the bad examples of what people are able to accomplish. This is another case of a bad example. It does, however, point to a growing problem and concern. If companies such as NCSoft can not take care of thier customers then the customers will take care of themselves.With how online gaming is growing and with it all the bad things that grow with it like the farming and botting I think you can realistically expect people to do thngs like this in order to enjoy something. It is sad but true.
To make it really clear selling virtual currency is NOT illegal in any sense of the definition. For something to be illegal it has to violate government's law. Software piracy on the other hand is illegal, very illegal in fact with penalties in the US being up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine (Title 17 of U.S.C.). Copyright laws are also upheld across the world in most civilized nations.
Virtual currency trading is a breach of private contract and would only be heard in a civil case (ie NCSoft vs IGE, etc). When a LAW is broken (ie something illegal was done) then it becomes (The State of California vs xxx or The United States of America vs xxx, etc, etc).
To my knowledge there are no US laws (or laws in any other nations) that prohibit the sale of virtual currency or items. MMORPG.com would never advertise for a company that did anything illegal...ever.
Pssst. Breaching a private contract IS illegal. Otherwise, you couldn't be held responsible in front of a civil.. huh.. court of law, you know, which could later on give you the order to pay something back or authorize the use of limited force to seize from you the goods that will be used as your payment.
So I think the word you're looking for is "Criminal". It is NOT criminal to sell online currency because it is NOT criminal to breach a contract. However, you can be held legally responsible for breaching the contract and it IS illegal because a court of law can constrain you to a certain action as the result of you breaking the contract.
That being said, don't fancy yourself too much in what you do. I understand it brings you money to have those ads up, but it DOES encourage illegal activity, wether you like it or not, and it is immoral, wether you like it or not, because it does more to disrupt gameplay in regular customers than it does for those rich SOAB you buy the currencies/items. Its not a matter of opinion, its just plain fact and not playing with the words.
Finally, I appreciate that you had the guts -- or plain stupid idea -- of posting this. I respect MMORPG.com for being a major hub in MMO world, but this kind of post from an Admin here is just crossing the line and plain just unacceptable.
1 down, 3,499 P.servers to go.. its endless but making a good effort in bringing it down.
All canceled. Waiting on Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning.
To make it really clear selling virtual currency is NOT illegal in any sense of the definition. For something to be illegal it has to violate government's law. Software piracy on the other hand is illegal, very illegal in fact with penalties in the US being up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine (Title 17 of U.S.C.). Copyright laws are also upheld across the world in most civilized nations.
Virtual currency trading is a breach of private contract and would only be heard in a civil case (ie NCSoft vs IGE, etc). When a LAW is broken (ie something illegal was done) then it becomes (The State of California vs xxx or The United States of America vs xxx, etc, etc).
To my knowledge there are no US laws (or laws in any other nations) that prohibit the sale of virtual currency or items. MMORPG.com would never advertise for a company that did anything illegal...ever.
Pssst. Breaching a private contract IS illegal. Otherwise, you couldn't be held responsible in front of a civil.. huh.. court of law, you know, which could later on give you the order to pay something back or authorize the use of limited force to seize from you the goods that will be used as your payment.
So I think the word you're looking for is "Criminal". It is NOT criminal to sell online currency because it is NOT criminal to breach a contract. However, you can be held legally responsible for breaching the contract and it IS illegal because a court of law can constrain you to a certain action as the result of you breaking the contract.
That being said, don't fancy yourself too much in what you do. I understand it brings you money to have those ads up, but it DOES encourage illegal activity, wether you like it or not, and it is immoral, wether you like it or not, because it does more to disrupt gameplay in regular customers than it does for those rich SOAB you buy the currencies/items. Its not a matter of opinion, its just plain fact and not playing with the words.
Finally, I appreciate that you had the guts -- or plain stupid idea -- of posting this. I respect MMORPG.com for being a major hub in MMO world, but this kind of post from an Admin here is just crossing the line and plain just unacceptable.
lol you must be smoking something it's obvious what he stated,
The FBI did not close them down for selling of curency because it is illegal, FBI has no jurisdiction in cival matters period, nor do they want it. They were closed dow because they may have commited a fedral offense by allowing their users to download directly off the gaming sites servers costing them large amounts of money in bandwidth. Which after a certain dollar point met is considered a fedral crime basicly stealing bandwidth. Same as stealing gold out of fort nox it's not money but the value of it is enough to land you in a fedral court.
Oh and breaching a private contract you have to prove it was breeched which is next to impossible. A simular court case was thrown out of court over a MMO because it could not be proven that the guy actually pressed the accept button. It was argued that his 10 year old son could have been doing it and playing the game wich would not make the parent liable for the breech but make the parrent liable for the child breeching the contract and then again they have to prove the child did it etc... Gets thrown out of court and did happen.
To make it really clear selling virtual currency is NOT illegal in any sense of the definition. For something to be illegal it has to violate government's law. Software piracy on the other hand is illegal, very illegal in fact with penalties in the US being up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine (Title 17 of U.S.C.). Copyright laws are also upheld across the world in most civilized nations.
Virtual currency trading is a breach of private contract and would only be heard in a civil case (ie NCSoft vs IGE, etc). When a LAW is broken (ie something illegal was done) then it becomes (The State of California vs xxx or The United States of America vs xxx, etc, etc).
To my knowledge there are no US laws (or laws in any other nations) that prohibit the sale of virtual currency or items. MMORPG.com would never advertise for a company that did anything illegal...ever.
Pssst. Breaching a private contract IS illegal. Otherwise, you couldn't be held responsible in front of a civil.. huh.. court of law, you know, which could later on give you the order to pay something back or authorize the use of limited force to seize from you the goods that will be used as your payment.
So I think the word you're looking for is "Criminal". It is NOT criminal to sell online currency because it is NOT criminal to breach a contract. However, you can be held legally responsible for breaching the contract and it IS illegal because a court of law can constrain you to a certain action as the result of you breaking the contract.
That being said, don't fancy yourself too much in what you do. I understand it brings you money to have those ads up, but it DOES encourage illegal activity, wether you like it or not, and it is immoral, wether you like it or not, because it does more to disrupt gameplay in regular customers than it does for those rich SOAB you buy the currencies/items. Its not a matter of opinion, its just plain fact and not playing with the words.
Finally, I appreciate that you had the guts -- or plain stupid idea -- of posting this. I respect MMORPG.com for being a major hub in MMO world, but this kind of post from an Admin here is just crossing the line and plain just unacceptable.
lol you must be smoking something it's obvious what he stated,
The FBI did not close them down for selling of curency because it is illegal, FBI has no jurisdiction in cival matters period, nor do they want it. They were closed dow because they may have commited a fedral offense by allowing their users to download directly off the gaming sites servers costing them large amounts of money in bandwidth. Which after a certain dollar point met is considered a fedral crime basicly stealing bandwidth. Same as stealing gold out of fort nox it's not money but the value of it is enough to land you in a fedral court.
Oh and breaching a private contract you have to prove it was breeched which is next to impossible. A simular court case was thrown out of court over a MMO because it could not be proven that the guy actually pressed the accept button. It was argued that his 10 year old son could have been doing it and playing the game wich would not make the parent liable for the breech but make the parrent liable for the child breeching the contract and then again they have to prove the child did it etc... Gets thrown out of court and did happen.
I think you will find that in an industry that reaches into the billions of dollars that things will start changing on this front. If you look at what laws there are, were and go by those trends you can easily see that when enough is put out about soemthing and there is enough money backing a play then laws will change or be developed to deal with these situations.
Unfortunately, Lineage II is a game of the past. The most fun i've had with L2 was during Open Beta to Chronicle 1. Will probably never play on official servers again.