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Private servers just got owned.
Precusor
Member UncommonPosts: 3,589
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Precusor
Member UncommonPosts: 3,589
Comments
Who wants to play on private servers anyway.
But this is a good laugh nonetheless.
Soooo, one hosting company is asked to stop hosting private servers for WoW....so what? (this happens frequently for all private servers)
And how does that constitute "Private servers just got owned"? You realize there is more than ONE COMPANY you rent a server from? You also realize you could run one out of your own home right?
Anyone dumb enough to run a private server for any game out of US (or any country that gives a shit about copy rights) deserves to get shut down.
srsly
LOL I have just emailed Christian and told him to tell Blizzard to sort the frigging gold spammers out if they want to make a difference. Because they never respond to emails about these complaints.
Asbo
I think that the overall point of the thread was that this letter does not 'ask nicely' for them to look into the matter, this letter basically says "sort it now or we will take you down!". It then goes on to say that they not only want the servers shut down and ensure that no further servers are opened, they also want the full details of every person that has opened a private server so the legal attention can be diverted at them.
It is a big move because it sends out the message to the private server community that Activision Blizzard/Vivendi will no longer tolerate these actions and if it means beating people with the legal baseball bat then so be it.
So now the choice is pretty simple from a business perspective, do you take notice as a provider and start shutting down private server users or do you risk having your whole business shut down for the sake of several users??
Then you have the choice faced by the people that are setting up these servers, do you run like hell and try and cover your tracks or do you try and continue and face personal financial ruin? I mean if Vivendi decide to sue you for the lost revenue of every person that has used your server, a couple of paychecks aint gonna cover it now, is it.
It isn't about one provider, it is about sending out the message and that has been done loud and clear.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
I think that the overall point of the thread was that this letter does not 'ask nicely' for them to look into the matter, this letter basically says "sort it now or we will take you down!". It then goes on to say that they not only want the servers shut down and ensure that no further servers are opened, they also want the full details of every person that has opened a private server so the legal attention can be diverted at them.
It is a big move because it sends out the message to the private server community that Activision Blizzard/Vivendi will no longer tolerate these actions and if it means beating people with the legal baseball bat then so be it.
So now the choice is pretty simple from a business perspective, do you take notice as a provider and start shutting down private server users or do you risk having your whole business shut down for the sake of several users??
Then you have the choice faced by the people that are setting up these servers, do you run like hell and try and cover your tracks or do you try and continue and face personal financial ruin? I mean if Vivendi decide to sue you for the lost revenue of every person that has used your server, a couple of paychecks aint gonna cover it now, is it.
It isn't about one provider, it is about sending out the message and that has been done loud and clear.
It may be possible that the company renting the servers has a policy that they have no liability to check their customers servers and that it is at customer's own risk to host illegal servers.
If their policy has accepted by the government then Blizzard cannot do anything to them. Their company may support them by giving out the names but they have no obligation to take down the servers.
This is a serious issue and has nothing to do with individual private servers being targeted. Blizzard is abusing the DMCA and setting a precidence for EULA's being legally enforcable instead of merely in game. The worst part is that none of the private servers could ever afford to fight this gross misuse of the DMCA.
I understand every bussines want to make money. I know they are here to do that, but with 12 million customers they have enought, damn, what a greedy people.
Its not about the 12 million or being greedy, its about stopping it from escalating, if they let private servers being created, they are just pretty much saying "its ok to use our software illegally" and god knows where this would lead to, in no time you had people "selling" content in private servers much like what happened in Lineage 2, where one server had more than 1 million registered users and a revenue equivalent to 56% of NCSoft's NA L2 market.
Honestly, ok fine they are taking action against private servers but i do have to agree about the gold spammer remark, how about fix that problem first because they are getting rediculous in game and it gets annoying having to /ignor 30 different people a day lol
I of course stand to be corrected, but i was under the impression that this was sorted out in law a long time ago and it is the reason why ISP's have to be very careful about the sites they host too. Basically, if you own the server then you are the one responsible for the content on it and although i am sure this was tested in court a long time ago i cannot quote where. What it is there to do is to stop people from placing illegal content on a server and then claiming "someone else did it" as a defense.
And Funkwich, you have to remember that there are also a lot of people producing online games out there that cannot afford to protect themselves against people that would steal and use their intellectual property. Although i won't go as far as to say that Blizzard are "protecting the little guy", any victory against this kind of 'theft' and piracy is good for the whole industry.
Can i just sideline and say that we do need to remember that this is in effect theft and the people running these servers are taking someone elses work (big corp or not) and using it for their own ends. Let's also not forget that for every one of these servers that is set up out of the goodness of someone's heart to allow people to play for free, there are another 10, 20, whatever amount out there for their own gain. That may be in the form of infecting your machine with a keylogger or stealing information about your own wow details or worse. Generally people do not do things of this scale just for the hell of it, 9 times out of 10 there will be something in it for them.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
People know they shouldn't be making these types of servers, they are illegal they shouldn't be surprised when they get shutdown, it isn't greed its protection of property if anything.
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
That doesn't protect them from abiding by what Blizzard has asked for, giving them the names/addresses in question. Then Blizzard goes straight to the source of the problem. The law is pretty clear, it's not enough to simply stand back and say, "But I'm not doing anything wrong." If you are allowing or helping people do something illegal, you can be forced to stop it whether or not you are doing anything illegal yourself.
belive it or not , i don't care if people know my name
im nto giving out the details of how many people ive had on any of the private server ive ever made used or created in any order
and im a horrible speller
i make them for fun
i don't ask for donations
and i don't sell ingame items / money /right"@-#-$"; comands
i don't ask for mney for people too be my GM's
and on top of all that
I DO ASK FOR SOMETHING
i ask for my people
on MY server
too have fun
without being constantly bothered by advertising bot
hackers
gold selling spammers
or general a$$h0I3Z
i make the envirment clean
and i do not put virus's in clients
i make them so i can plainly see how people who enjoy my server compared too the idiots the realy own the game
and 9/10 times the servers i make have
#1 LESS LAGG
#2 LESS IDIOTS/ ^
#3 ITS FREE
#4 NO VIRUS 10/10
#5 ITS THE SAME GOD DANG GAME NOTHIGN HAS CHANGED
you know what the best part is
i agree with you
shuting down servers would help too generaly industry this is why i don't host them anymore
but do you know the general reason people make them?
BECUASE THEY BOARD
MAD
HAT E THE GREEDY OWNERS
if your going to make 15 exspantions DO ASK the users too buy them all how much is that
ima round it off
lets say 20$ per XS xspantion set
and you make 15
and the game it self cost 60 in the very begining
hmm thats 360$ for a single game
and none of the sh*t you get in those XS give you the ability to get father they do the exsact oposite they make the game longer and make you even more of a nub
people dont want to always continue spnding 100$'s of $ on a game they want to pay for it once a month or play a game that does not have hackers or has a good GM team that REALY BANS THEM
and i don't mean just a temp ban
i mean AUTO BAN PERM foreven
name banning
mine is joshua arbuckle
theyd have to ban joshua arbuckle
my address
my phone number
my IP
and lastly my comp ID
it would cost more to go around these things then it would to just pay for the game
but do they stop the hackers no
becuase to them
this is a reason and on goignreason to say
o were doing the best we can
when we honestly know for a fact that if they wanted to stop this crap
they could but then theyd have nothign to do
ill pay 10 20 or even 30 a month for a REALY good mmo game that isnt boaing
but when you ahve add bots and hackers
site spammers
and crap that gets too you on a dayly basis you turn to private server
why?
becuase the normal EXP rate s a bit higher for the low rates
maing it a BIT easyer to get allt he stuff you left behind back
and there are NO AD SPAMMERS
no HACKERs
no PRICKS
and no LAGG
4 of the main reasons people quit are solve by moving
With multiple projects going on to develop sever emulation for WoW, it is pretty hard to get this cat back into the bag.
I think that the only ones that should be really concerned are the private servers that accept money. These 'donations' are people making money from their servers, which I think would be a primary target for Blizzard's legal team. A few select servers (I won't name them here) have thousands of members, some of whom are paying for items on those servers.
Joe Schmo running an emulator on his computer so he and he alone can screw around and do whatever he wants in the game, has little to worry about, imo.
You won't have to give out any details if someone else hosts your servers for you as they will do that on your behalf.
Whichever way you like to sugar coat it you are stealing someones property for your own ends and that is illegal, which would in turn make you a criminal? You may see yourself as some sort of romantic Robin Hood figure, taking from the large nasty profit making corporation and giving to those poor people who cannot afford to pay their subs or get hassled by those nasty gold sellers, but in reality something like this is in the books alongside tax evasion, drug dealing, money laundering etc...criminal offences!
Look, i can't say that i am some sort of squeeky clean saint, but anyone trying to justify why they are stealing someone elses property is just blowing hot air.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
paying for items in a official server is stupid on a private server is just retarded
BestSigEver :P
I'd suspect that all the owners of these servers will end up having to pay 4 years worth of subs for an entire server to blizzard as damages.
And this is just one server provider but blizzard is going after all of them hard. If you own a private server expect to pay a few million to Blizzard.
I am skeptical that any private server has millions. I can see them making thousands, but no more than this.
paying for items in a official server is stupid on a private server is just retarded
But it is based on the same principle. If you're not paying for a monthly sub, they have to get money from somewhere to keep the servers running. It is like running a cash shop in one of the myriad free mmos out there.
I agree, though, it doesn't seem bright to spend money on a private server. You must really have some cash burning a hole in your pocket to spend what some people apparently spend on them.
I am skeptical that any private server has millions. I can see them making thousands, but no more than this.
You are right, some may have nothing at all, but that doesn't stop Blizzard from asking for the lost revenue from the private server founders. Of course the biggest problem with going down that road is that they would have to prove that the users of the private servers would have actually paid a sub if the private servers were not available, which is gonna be pretty damned difficult to prove. It will be much easier to claim damages for breach of copyright and theft of intellectual property from the guys that set up the private servers.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
I've had more fun on private servers than i ever did on the live game. but even as a f2p game wow is still bad.
My blog:
In all fairness, it's not stealing. I mean: NO; I wouldn't steal a car, but I would sure copy it if I could. Though, I still agree that setting up big, private servers might hurt the industry.
Hello there, adventurer!
In all fairness, it IS stealing!
It's like a thief telling the police that he just 'borrowed' the car he took, which ever way you colour it, it is stealing.
Did you code the game - NO
Did you come up with all of the original artwork and ideas - NO
Did you pay for the marketing and production - NO
So is it your property - NO
So with that in mind, knowing that it is not your property, at which point does it make it ok to take it or 'copy' it if you will?
Just because it is code on a machine it doesn't make it any less someone else's property that is being stolen. A grocer will keep his produce out in front of his store, it is in easy reach and not being watched over most of the time, but we don't steal that either do we because it is someone else's property and we know we have to pay for it if we want it.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
If you could copy a car, it would be illegal to do it.
if you want people to take you seriously and actually read this, LEARN TO SPELL YOU F'N RETARD! and
dont
type
like
this
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