Wow that sucks lol, ah well maybe she should of actually 'earned' her money like the rest of us. She screwed up, seriously... if she hadn't of been making that much off of it Blizzard might not of went after her. She should of kept the income low, just enough to support herself off of advertisements or something...
So she had her own server and ran it pretty well it seems. Goes to show that all that extra cost the companies are charging for every littler thing could be a nice sham. I know she isnt writin code, but the up keep is still there. Seems we are all still getting shafted by cost in so way or another. Could care less is Blizz lost some money to her. They will release the next pretty pony to all the monkies sooner or later and make 100x that give or take.
Pretty much.
Players as a whole are getting the shaft from most game developers over charging, charging for "extra" DLC content (that was cut from the original game), and other "extra" items that a couple years ago would have been given for to players in a content patch that their subscriptions fund. It makes me just shake my head how that despite being blatently ripped off, so many people beg for more of it.
There is nothing wrong with private servers, they are pretty cool actually. The problem lies with people trying to take something like a private server and make money from it. By adding microtransactions without Blizzards knowledge or giving blizzard a cut of the money. If they would have contacted blizzard and asked them about it, perhaps the company may have been willing to work something out with them, even though that does sound unlikely. YOu never know until you ask.
"Blizzard sued a gold seller and put them out of business. Good."
This is his quote.
And for christ sake, for the other poster, I don't play WoW, I never really did for more than a month. I am not defending the girl, I am asking why the same isnt happening to the gold sellers. Don't twist it all around.
I highlighted the part you are obviously having trouble understanding.
Other than that you are here to do nothing more than bash on blizzard.
Just look how you try to twist things around earlier in this post when you said the following.
"They picked up a fight against a little girl and not a real bad guys here - IGE.com. How coward is that? And you're even defending that?"
So blizzard is A) picking on a little girl and a coward for doing it.
This little girl was breaking the law and made millions of dollars doing it. How can YOU defend that?
I would try to explain some of the differences between currency sales, private servers, ingame advertising and how some cases are easier than others to file suit against, but I just know you would not understand it.
Let's get something straight here as apparently there are WAYY too many ignorant kids in this thread.
First off, ANY "private server" using an "emulated" version of server software developed WITHOUT any code or work from Blizzard's own code is legal. This is PROTECTED by LAW since it's someone ELSE's work and NOT the original companies. You're essentially just making your own server software to respond and talk to their client (which if you paid for, and did not torrent/pirate, makes this part legal....unless their client is free for download then it doesn't matter).
This is why they haven't, and won't, go after most private servers. Now, the part where it DOES become illegal is when they "charge" for services using a company's client materal (ie: charging for items that you can only garnish by using Blizzard's client software without their permission). This is a WELL KNOWN fact within the "private servers" world.
The only reason this moron thought she could get away with this is that she believed that they wouldn't go after someone as "Small time" as her. That is until she moronically bragged to her friends about how much money she made. From what I'm told, it was a family member of one of her friends that reported the illegal earnings to blizzard (wow player lol?), and then whom took legal action.
So let's sum this up for everyone:
-Creating an emulated "open source" server software for an MMO is NOT illegal as it's third party work and has ZERO connection to blizzard.
-As long as you paid for your copy of the game's original client (that's being talked to by the server emulation software) it's completely LEGAL.
-The part where it becomes ILLEGAL is when you attempt to charge for ANY service using Blizzard's client software as a medium (connecting to the server).
-99% of "private servers" are donation based, and this is also completely legal as long as a donation isn't "Required". ANY server that says someone will get any FORM of "benefits" for donating should be reported. They try to shimmy around the law in order to get more donations, and this IS illegal so you should report them no matter what.
Thank you for reading, you are now more informed than you were previously about private servers. Have a nice day !
-Faded
Well this is a bit of a grey area.. But Blizzard rents / loans you access to its client. In order to play on private servers you have to alter client files (in most cases just one) and that within itself can be considered a illegal alteration of the client itself. While its not illegal to host a software that allows access to it. It is however illegal to alter a client to connect to it. So they could go after every person that ever connected to a private server and get the cost of a monthly subscription + client from them. I doubt that would ever happen other then to prove a point type of situation.
And legally any type of donation has to have tax's paid upon it. So most Private servers operate in a illegal fasion. Most people do not realize that any type of donation you make a % of that gets paid to taxs. Most private server operaters never report this in order to keep the money, ect. Another grey area.
There is nothing wrong with private servers, they are pretty cool actually. The problem lies with people trying to take something like a private server and make money from it. By adding microtransactions without Blizzards knowledge or giving blizzard a cut of the money. If they would have contacted blizzard and asked them about it, perhaps the company may have been willing to work something out with them, even though that does sound unlikely. YOu never know until you ask.
Yep, that's pretty much what's happening over at the IGE.
I think the main reason why Blizzard take on this particular person is that this person is a scam artist, not an "innocent little girl".
I did some Googling about her and she's running amok on the internet scamming people using "donation" as her tool; playing with people's emotional vulnerability to squeeze out a few bucks from them.
There is nothing wrong with private servers, they are pretty cool actually. The problem lies with people trying to take something like a private server and make money from it. By adding microtransactions without Blizzards knowledge or giving blizzard a cut of the money. If they would have contacted blizzard and asked them about it, perhaps the company may have been willing to work something out with them, even though that does sound unlikely. YOu never know until you ask.
You dont make sense. It's stealing. A software is just like a car or a tv, it belong to someone if you stole it and use it to your advantage it's a theft. Just because you stole it to use it yourself or let other use it for free doesnt make it less of a crime.
I think the main reason why Blizzard take on this particular person is that this person is a scam artist, not an "innocent little girl".
I did some Googling about her and she's running amok on the internet scamming people using "donation" as her tool; playing with people's emotional vulnerability to squeeze out a few bucks from them.
This woman is sick and ought to be in jail.
Again, I'm not defending her which some posters like Daffid still didn't get, even after 10 hours and about 25 posts. The girl deserves to be punished, but the girl is not the real devil on the field.
I'm asking why the biggest gold sellers like ige.com and hundreds of other smaller gold sellers are still up and running without any lawsuit being held against them. The answer - "it's harder to fill it" might be enough for the fanboys, but it isn't for me.
It boggles my mind on how anyone can possibly be upset with Blizzard or defend the woman.
The woman was illegally profiting from Blizzard's work. She was making millions of dollars doing it.
She told a friend or family member who tipped Blizzard off, they filed a suit regarding damages and the woman ran. She didnt dispute the charges or even try to fight it. She completely ignored the suit.
By her completely ignoring it, the judge granted a DEFAULT judgement in Blizzards favor to the fullest extent of the law.
Courts do NOT favor or show leniency for those that dont even show up.
The same goes for a traffic ticket. If you get a ticket and challenge it and the officer that issued it doesnt show up, you win by default.
She broke the law and Blizzard defended themselves. She didn't show up to defend herself. And for all you know, IGE.com is defending itself or working a deal with Blizzard or in litigation or some other legal bull. Because the big dogs arnt being announced or being brought down doesnt mean they arnt fighting.
Let's get something straight here as apparently there are WAYY too many ignorant kids in this thread.
First off, ANY "private server" using an "emulated" version of server software developed WITHOUT any code or work from Blizzard's own code is legal. This is PROTECTED by LAW since it's someone ELSE's work and NOT the original companies. You're essentially just making your own server software to respond and talk to their client (which if you paid for, and did not torrent/pirate, makes this part legal....unless their client is free for download then it doesn't matter).
This is why they haven't, and won't, go after most private servers. Now, the part where it DOES become illegal is when they "charge" for services using a company's client materal (ie: charging for items that you can only garnish by using Blizzard's client software without their permission). This is a WELL KNOWN fact within the "private servers" world.
The only reason this moron thought she could get away with this is that she believed that they wouldn't go after someone as "Small time" as her. That is until she moronically bragged to her friends about how much money she made. From what I'm told, it was a family member of one of her friends that reported the illegal earnings to blizzard (wow player lol?), and then whom took legal action.
So let's sum this up for everyone:
-Creating an emulated "open source" server software for an MMO is NOT illegal as it's third party work and has ZERO connection to blizzard.
-As long as you paid for your copy of the game's original client (that's being talked to by the server emulation software) it's completely LEGAL.
-The part where it becomes ILLEGAL is when you attempt to charge for ANY service using Blizzard's client software as a medium (connecting to the server).
-99% of "private servers" are donation based, and this is also completely legal as long as a donation isn't "Required". ANY server that says someone will get any FORM of "benefits" for donating should be reported. They try to shimmy around the law in order to get more donations, and this IS illegal so you should report them no matter what.
Thank you for reading, you are now more informed than you were previously about private servers. Have a nice day !
-Faded
Well this is a bit of a grey area.. But Blizzard rents / loans you access to its client. In order to play on private servers you have to alter client files (in most cases just one) and that within itself can be considered a illegal alteration of the client itself. While its not illegal to host a software that allows access to it. It is however illegal to alter a client to connect to it. So they could go after every person that ever connected to a private server and get the cost of a monthly subscription + client from them. I doubt that would ever happen other then to prove a point type of situation.
And legally any type of donation has to have tax's paid upon it. So most Private servers operate in a illegal fasion. Most people do not realize that any type of donation you make a % of that gets paid to taxs. Most private server operaters never report this in order to keep the money, ect. Another grey area.
If you didn't run around trying to make your argument look valid by pre-emptively calling anyone who might disagree with you a fanboy you might be taken seriously. Also calling blizzard cowards for picking on a little girls doesn't make your "views" look very credible. You are trying to make this about enjoying the game.
Why hasn't someone taken down IGE yet? Well it is a difficult thing to do, but you don't see that, because your personal angst gets in the way.
The "little girl" was taken down, because she made for a very easy case of copyright infringment by taking money for something she didn't own. Peons4hire got hammered for spamming the wow servers with advertising which made the case stronger against them.
All of the cases blizzard filed and won had some extra issues where they could argue in a court room. None of which have tackled the issue of gold selling, which is still a very difficult issue to handle.
I think the main reason why Blizzard take on this particular person is that this person is a scam artist, not an "innocent little girl".
I did some Googling about her and she's running amok on the internet scamming people using "donation" as her tool; playing with people's emotional vulnerability to squeeze out a few bucks from them.
This woman is sick and ought to be in jail.
Again, I'm not defending her which some posters like Daffid still didn't get, even after 10 hours and about 25 posts. The girl deserves to be punished, but the girl is not the real devil on the field.
I'm asking why the biggest gold sellers like ige.com and hundreds of other smaller gold sellers are still up and running without any lawsuit being held against them. The answer - "it's harder to fill it" might be enough for the fanboys, but it isn't for me.
Gold seller is harder to prosecute base solely on an unavailable facts on who exactly to sue or at fault or responsible for damages. You can't simply sue the company since the company is not the one breaking the EULA, the player who is farming is. And you cannot subpoena the company to produce the names of their employees ro contractor who could've violated the EULA, since the company cannot incriminate themself, under the 4th Amendment rights.
So if you are Blizzard, who are your going to sue?
You can waste your money on investigation, but people shares account everyday in this type of business and you don't want to prosecute the wrong person, because if you did and lost, that company will be under the protection of 5th Amendment, double jeopardy.
Compiling evidence is the hardest part of prosecution process and the only reasonable way Blizzard can do is to discourage the practice of gold buying. Blizzard is also smart enough not to name names, because that would end up them being sued for defamation.
The only way I can see how Blizzard might be awarded damages is if the private server were charging people for access, and thus actually making profit from Blizzard's work.
If on the other hand, they weren't, then this just shows that something is seriously wrong with the court system, and the issue should have ended with a simple cease and desist, and a shutting down of the server.
No you are wrong. Any private server is taking income away from Blizzard so they have every right to sue for loss of income if nothing else. And as I previous poster said, the defendent ignored the courts and never get a lawyer. It's their own fault.
Hardly, like 90% of the people on private servers, will NEVER play on retail, even if the private server business is shut down. They refuse to pay, and it won't change once the free options are gone. It's like busting game piracy. More than half the people weren't going to buy those games anyways, so the game company isn't losing nearly as much as people think.
This. I can't stop laughting when copyright companies cry how they lose billions every year because of piracy. Wake up, most of those people would never buy your products.
Let's get something straight here as apparently there are WAYY too many ignorant kids in this thread.
First off, ANY "private server" using an "emulated" version of server software developed WITHOUT any code or work from Blizzard's own code is legal. This is PROTECTED by LAW since it's someone ELSE's work and NOT the original companies. You're essentially just making your own server software to respond and talk to their client (which if you paid for, and did not torrent/pirate, makes this part legal....unless their client is free for download then it doesn't matter).
Well this is a bit of a grey area.. But Blizzard rents / loans you access to its client. In order to play on private servers you have to alter client files (in most cases just one) and that within itself can be considered a illegal alteration of the client itself. While its not illegal to host a software that allows access to it. It is however illegal to alter a client to connect to it.
The greatest "ignorant kid" seems to be the one throwing stones, here. There's no grey area, anywhere, either.
Thomas2006 is entirely correct: you only "lease" your client from ActiBlizzard whilst you have an active and paid account. Legally, you're required to uninstall/remove their software from your computer(s) when you cancel your account. You agree to do that (amongst other things) when you click all those funky little "accept" buttons under the blurb most people don't read (which some of us, in fact, do). Don't have an active account? You shouldn't have their client installed.
Additionally, altering any client files required to contact an un-official (private) server also negates your license and, once again, you're liable to account restriction/banning and are "required" to remove/uninstall your client. It's just the way it works. There is no grey area, here.
As for Faded's nonsense: sure, you could develop a server that could, in theory, talk to a WoW client. Unfortunately, to actually make it viable, you'd need to have it communicate properly with those clients and, to do that, you'd need to intercept and decode Blizzard's own communications to their official servers and/or decompile their client and look at how they encode/decode from that. Both of those are completely and entirely illegal, as per their licenses and agreements, no matter how much you may wish it was otherwise. You could have the most bleeding-edge server software in the world but if it doesn't know how to talk to the clients, it's utterly worthless, and there is absolutely no way for you to know those communication protocols without coming to an agreement with ActiBlizzard or illegally working it out for yourself. There is no grey area, here, either.
No matter how much you want this to not be the case and no matter how much you may enjoy playing on those cutesy little private servers, doing so is illegal. Period. Whining that it's not the case doesn't make you any less wrong.
Please stop spreading nonsense and please stop trying to encourage illegal activities just because you may happen to enjoy engaging in them.
Yes, they are sueing small gold sellers, not the big ones like IGE.
"It's interesting that the company is going after a small outfit like Peons4hire. After all, huge outfits like IGE are making enormous profits buying and selling WoW gold, as well as virtual assets from other online games. "
It's from 2007. Nothing has happened since then. But a lawsuit against a single girl was resolved basically immediately, in 9 months. (From October, 2009).
How do all the blizzard fanboys explain that? "They are not similiar" is simply not good enough.
The reason they don't go after the larger companies first is a tactical one. This victory for Blizzard illustrates the tactics involved. 49 out of 50 states use a legal process known as Common Law (LA uses the Napoleonic Code, which is similar, but has striking differences). Under Common Law, if a presidence is set in law by a ruiling judge, and a lawyer can make the case that the current case is similar enough to the previous case to be considered to be in the same vein, then the presidence set by the first case is use to guide the judgment in the current case.
Small companies and individuals cannot defend themselves well against large corporations like Blizzard and so they use them to set presidence against activity that they don't like so that when they finally do go after the huge companies, they can have a greater impact and a greater chance of winning the judgment they want. This is a first step. The courts have ruled that selling in-game items for money = big payout for the infringed party. Gold is the same, legally speaking, because it is an in-game item, and gold sellers are selling it for real money. The only difference in the situations is that the current judgement is against a private server and gold sellers practice their con game on live servers.
I'm looking forward to seeing gold sellers ruined by Common Law closures in poorly defined regulations and laws governing online activities.
Do you know why most gold sellers are in China? Because China won't prosecute a national over the interests of a foreign nation. The country protects criminals, so long as they arne't stealing from China itself. And they have the audacity to get upset over out protectionist tariffs.
Well this is a bit of a grey area.. But Blizzard rents / loans you access to its client. In order to play on private servers you have to alter client files (in most cases just one) and that within itself can be considered a illegal alteration of the client itself. While its not illegal to host a software that allows access to it. It is however illegal to alter a client to connect to it. So they could go after every person that ever connected to a private server and get the cost of a monthly subscription + client from them. I doubt that would ever happen other then to prove a point type of situation.
And legally any type of donation has to have tax's paid upon it. So most Private servers operate in a illegal fasion. Most people do not realize that any type of donation you make a % of that gets paid to taxs. Most private server operaters never report this in order to keep the money, ect. Another grey area.
Neither of these are grey areas. Altering the software so that it performs in a manner other than that intended by the devloper is illegal. This includes making it able to connect to private servers. Failing to pay taxes on money earned is called tax Fraud, and is also patently illegal.
There is no grey area here. Both are criminal activities. We refer to them in law as Civil Wrongs, or Torts. They are met by fines and penalties. Make no mistake, these activities are illegal, there is no grey area here. If you're doing them, someone will get around to going after you. The Federal Government will be looking at your tax records when you're found out, and you will be getting calls from the IRS... Enjoy your life. While you can.
Whatever my attitude is towards private servers, and selling stuff on private servers, there are literally HUNDREDS OF websites selling WOW GOLD - which obviously, doesn't bother anyone nor Blizzard. But out of thin air, here comes a girl that loses a lawsuit in 6 months for 88.5$ mil,... incredible.
Cause selling gold and running private servers are similar..... hello ?
HOW is that not similiar? Aren't both against EULA?
Gold must be obtained - which takes time - and you pay for the time in game. So gold in fact is equal to time in the matter. Hence, if you buy gold NOT from Blizzard, someone else is MAKING MONEY. Same as selling items on private server.
It is possible that the Blizzard legal team is working on more then one suit at a time. Additionally, a number of suits could be sealed until the case is over so we wouldn't have many details on them. Then there is the matter of getting the case tried in favorable jurisdiction which may not be an option for many of gold spam sites. I don't think it's as simple as "they chose a private server versus a gold seller to prosecute".
Yes, they are sueing small gold sellers, not the big ones like IGE.
"It's interesting that the company is going after a small outfit like Peons4hire. After all, huge outfits like IGE are making enormous profits buying and selling WoW gold, as well as virtual assets from other online games. "
It's from 2007. Nothing has happened since then. But a lawsuit against a single girl was resolved basically immediately, in 9 months. (From October, 2009).
How do all the blizzard fanboys explain that? "They are not similiar" is simply not good enough.
I don't think what she did was right, but you have a great point. There are companies that have been around for years that have yet to get touched. I suppose it is easier to take out people smaller and less rich then you?
Either way..Justice is justice what she did was wrong, do I think Blizzard deserves 88mil? No way but eh what ever.
Protects it's IPs and copyrights? Who the hell are they kidding. I get spam for "blizzard" at LEAST once a week now, telling me all about how this, that and the other has been done on my account, which has been closed for well over a year! If they want to do something proactive to protect their IPs and Copyrights, go after the scammers using 'valid' blizzard email addresses and domain names.
I think it would be cheaper to commit suicide than to pay that back. Sucks to be her. Even though I'm not currently a big fan of Blizzard I am happy to see that justice was served. This is what happens when people get greedy, it was bad enough that she had stolen their code and ran a server of her own but to charge people as well. Now that is what you call balls. Maybe that's why she got, cause she doesn't have any :P
If i where her i would go get me some guns and rifles and pull a terminator 1 police house scene on blizzard XD!!!
Comments
Outstanding!
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
Is she only 24 years old?
Wow that sucks lol, ah well maybe she should of actually 'earned' her money like the rest of us. She screwed up, seriously... if she hadn't of been making that much off of it Blizzard might not of went after her. She should of kept the income low, just enough to support herself off of advertisements or something...
Pretty much.
Players as a whole are getting the shaft from most game developers over charging, charging for "extra" DLC content (that was cut from the original game), and other "extra" items that a couple years ago would have been given for to players in a content patch that their subscriptions fund. It makes me just shake my head how that despite being blatently ripped off, so many people beg for more of it.
There is nothing wrong with private servers, they are pretty cool actually. The problem lies with people trying to take something like a private server and make money from it. By adding microtransactions without Blizzards knowledge or giving blizzard a cut of the money. If they would have contacted blizzard and asked them about it, perhaps the company may have been willing to work something out with them, even though that does sound unlikely. YOu never know until you ask.
I highlighted the part you are obviously having trouble understanding.
Other than that you are here to do nothing more than bash on blizzard.
Just look how you try to twist things around earlier in this post when you said the following.
"They picked up a fight against a little girl and not a real bad guys here - IGE.com. How coward is that? And you're even defending that?"
So blizzard is A) picking on a little girl and
a coward for doing it.
This little girl was breaking the law and made millions of dollars doing it. How can YOU defend that?
I would try to explain some of the differences between currency sales, private servers, ingame advertising and how some cases are easier than others to file suit against, but I just know you would not understand it.
Well this is a bit of a grey area.. But Blizzard rents / loans you access to its client. In order to play on private servers you have to alter client files (in most cases just one) and that within itself can be considered a illegal alteration of the client itself. While its not illegal to host a software that allows access to it. It is however illegal to alter a client to connect to it. So they could go after every person that ever connected to a private server and get the cost of a monthly subscription + client from them. I doubt that would ever happen other then to prove a point type of situation.
And legally any type of donation has to have tax's paid upon it. So most Private servers operate in a illegal fasion. Most people do not realize that any type of donation you make a % of that gets paid to taxs. Most private server operaters never report this in order to keep the money, ect. Another grey area.
Yep, that's pretty much what's happening over at the IGE.
REALITY CHECK
I think the main reason why Blizzard take on this particular person is that this person is a scam artist, not an "innocent little girl".
I did some Googling about her and she's running amok on the internet scamming people using "donation" as her tool; playing with people's emotional vulnerability to squeeze out a few bucks from them.
This woman is sick and ought to be in jail.
Ready for GW2!!!
You dont make sense. It's stealing. A software is just like a car or a tv, it belong to someone if you stole it and use it to your advantage it's a theft. Just because you stole it to use it yourself or let other use it for free doesnt make it less of a crime.
Again, I'm not defending her which some posters like Daffid still didn't get, even after 10 hours and about 25 posts. The girl deserves to be punished, but the girl is not the real devil on the field.
I'm asking why the biggest gold sellers like ige.com and hundreds of other smaller gold sellers are still up and running without any lawsuit being held against them. The answer - "it's harder to fill it" might be enough for the fanboys, but it isn't for me.
REALITY CHECK
It boggles my mind on how anyone can possibly be upset with Blizzard or defend the woman.
The woman was illegally profiting from Blizzard's work. She was making millions of dollars doing it.
She told a friend or family member who tipped Blizzard off, they filed a suit regarding damages and the woman ran. She didnt dispute the charges or even try to fight it. She completely ignored the suit.
By her completely ignoring it, the judge granted a DEFAULT judgement in Blizzards favor to the fullest extent of the law.
Courts do NOT favor or show leniency for those that dont even show up.
The same goes for a traffic ticket. If you get a ticket and challenge it and the officer that issued it doesnt show up, you win by default.
She broke the law and Blizzard defended themselves. She didn't show up to defend herself. And for all you know, IGE.com is defending itself or working a deal with Blizzard or in litigation or some other legal bull. Because the big dogs arnt being announced or being brought down doesnt mean they arnt fighting.
It really boggles my mind.
Tax evasion isn't a very grey area.
If you didn't run around trying to make your argument look valid by pre-emptively calling anyone who might disagree with you a fanboy you might be taken seriously. Also calling blizzard cowards for picking on a little girls doesn't make your "views" look very credible. You are trying to make this about enjoying the game.
Why hasn't someone taken down IGE yet? Well it is a difficult thing to do, but you don't see that, because your personal angst gets in the way.
The "little girl" was taken down, because she made for a very easy case of copyright infringment by taking money for something she didn't own. Peons4hire got hammered for spamming the wow servers with advertising which made the case stronger against them.
All of the cases blizzard filed and won had some extra issues where they could argue in a court room. None of which have tackled the issue of gold selling, which is still a very difficult issue to handle.
Gold seller is harder to prosecute base solely on an unavailable facts on who exactly to sue or at fault or responsible for damages. You can't simply sue the company since the company is not the one breaking the EULA, the player who is farming is. And you cannot subpoena the company to produce the names of their employees ro contractor who could've violated the EULA, since the company cannot incriminate themself, under the 4th Amendment rights.
So if you are Blizzard, who are your going to sue?
You can waste your money on investigation, but people shares account everyday in this type of business and you don't want to prosecute the wrong person, because if you did and lost, that company will be under the protection of 5th Amendment, double jeopardy.
Compiling evidence is the hardest part of prosecution process and the only reasonable way Blizzard can do is to discourage the practice of gold buying. Blizzard is also smart enough not to name names, because that would end up them being sued for defamation.
Ready for GW2!!!
This. I can't stop laughting when copyright companies cry how they lose billions every year because of piracy. Wake up, most of those people would never buy your products.
Interesting case.
The people who ran the server is stupid. the only thing that really made what they did illegal was the microtransactions.
They are not allowed to make money off of someone elses copyrighted works. that's called fraud and plagerism. I.E. Stealing.
The greatest "ignorant kid" seems to be the one throwing stones, here. There's no grey area, anywhere, either.
Thomas2006 is entirely correct: you only "lease" your client from ActiBlizzard whilst you have an active and paid account. Legally, you're required to uninstall/remove their software from your computer(s) when you cancel your account. You agree to do that (amongst other things) when you click all those funky little "accept" buttons under the blurb most people don't read (which some of us, in fact, do). Don't have an active account? You shouldn't have their client installed.
Additionally, altering any client files required to contact an un-official (private) server also negates your license and, once again, you're liable to account restriction/banning and are "required" to remove/uninstall your client. It's just the way it works. There is no grey area, here.
As for Faded's nonsense: sure, you could develop a server that could, in theory, talk to a WoW client. Unfortunately, to actually make it viable, you'd need to have it communicate properly with those clients and, to do that, you'd need to intercept and decode Blizzard's own communications to their official servers and/or decompile their client and look at how they encode/decode from that. Both of those are completely and entirely illegal, as per their licenses and agreements, no matter how much you may wish it was otherwise. You could have the most bleeding-edge server software in the world but if it doesn't know how to talk to the clients, it's utterly worthless, and there is absolutely no way for you to know those communication protocols without coming to an agreement with ActiBlizzard or illegally working it out for yourself. There is no grey area, here, either.
No matter how much you want this to not be the case and no matter how much you may enjoy playing on those cutesy little private servers, doing so is illegal. Period. Whining that it's not the case doesn't make you any less wrong.
Please stop spreading nonsense and please stop trying to encourage illegal activities just because you may happen to enjoy engaging in them.
The reason they don't go after the larger companies first is a tactical one. This victory for Blizzard illustrates the tactics involved. 49 out of 50 states use a legal process known as Common Law (LA uses the Napoleonic Code, which is similar, but has striking differences). Under Common Law, if a presidence is set in law by a ruiling judge, and a lawyer can make the case that the current case is similar enough to the previous case to be considered to be in the same vein, then the presidence set by the first case is use to guide the judgment in the current case.
Small companies and individuals cannot defend themselves well against large corporations like Blizzard and so they use them to set presidence against activity that they don't like so that when they finally do go after the huge companies, they can have a greater impact and a greater chance of winning the judgment they want. This is a first step. The courts have ruled that selling in-game items for money = big payout for the infringed party. Gold is the same, legally speaking, because it is an in-game item, and gold sellers are selling it for real money. The only difference in the situations is that the current judgement is against a private server and gold sellers practice their con game on live servers.
I'm looking forward to seeing gold sellers ruined by Common Law closures in poorly defined regulations and laws governing online activities.
Do you know why most gold sellers are in China? Because China won't prosecute a national over the interests of a foreign nation. The country protects criminals, so long as they arne't stealing from China itself. And they have the audacity to get upset over out protectionist tariffs.
Neither of these are grey areas. Altering the software so that it performs in a manner other than that intended by the devloper is illegal. This includes making it able to connect to private servers. Failing to pay taxes on money earned is called tax Fraud, and is also patently illegal.
There is no grey area here. Both are criminal activities. We refer to them in law as Civil Wrongs, or Torts. They are met by fines and penalties. Make no mistake, these activities are illegal, there is no grey area here. If you're doing them, someone will get around to going after you. The Federal Government will be looking at your tax records when you're found out, and you will be getting calls from the IRS... Enjoy your life. While you can.
the real question: is she hot?
Only the beholder can tell. :P
Ready for GW2!!!
I don't think what she did was right, but you have a great point. There are companies that have been around for years that have yet to get touched. I suppose it is easier to take out people smaller and less rich then you?
Either way..Justice is justice what she did was wrong, do I think Blizzard deserves 88mil? No way but eh what ever.
Protects it's IPs and copyrights? Who the hell are they kidding. I get spam for "blizzard" at LEAST once a week now, telling me all about how this, that and the other has been done on my account, which has been closed for well over a year! If they want to do something proactive to protect their IPs and Copyrights, go after the scammers using 'valid' blizzard email addresses and domain names.
If i where her i would go get me some guns and rifles and pull a terminator 1 police house scene on blizzard XD!!!