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.
You have no idea of how email works or how easy it is to abuse do you? any one care to explain?
I wonder what the implications are, if any, for those working on the private server emulation of pre-CU SWG?
People have tried to make private servers of every older MMO in it's "original" state so they can relive the glory days, it is illegal plain and simply. They generally get shut down the moment the companies find out about them. People have tried it with AC and AC2 many times and then once it's starts to get talked about a bit the site disappears every time.
I wonder what the implications are, if any, for those working on the private server emulation of pre-CU SWG?
People have tried to make private servers of every older MMO in it's "original" state so they can relive the glory days, it is illegal plain and simply. They generally get shut down the moment the companies find out about them. People have tried it with AC and AC2 many times and then once it's starts to get talked about a bit the site disappears every time.
How wrong you are. L2J for example is quite legal and ncsoft are fully aware of it. At least do some research and not just go with what you have seen thinking emulators = ilegal cause well then you just well fail.
I do find it rather amusing that a company who stole its entire IP (Warcraft / Starcraft) from another company (Gamesworkshop) to sue someone for infringement.
I do find it rather amusing that a company who stole its entire IP (Warcraft / Starcraft) from another company (Gamesworkshop) to sue someone for infringement.
Lets not forget angrathar gate *cough tolkien lotr angmar cough* *cough major rip off cough*
You can not advertise the name or logo without their permission.You own absolutely NOTHING of the game.If site A is paying Blizzard 500 bucks a month and you are paying nothing,then site A complains,Blizzard WILL shut you down.The foremost leader of this very such activity is Hasbro.
As far as the servers go Blizzard already shut down an operation in the very first year that ONLY had the software,they had no intention what so ever of running any server,and Blizzard won that legal battle as well,so anyone trying to claim you can run a private server using another game's name and logo are way out to lunch.
What i would like to know is where is the millions to allow us the users who pay for their lawyers to sue them when we feel the need?Gaming is a one ticket,the laws and big lawyers protect the developers not the little guys.This is why they have a nicely worded TOS that by the way you can only read AFTER you open the software,then they claim you cannot return it after it is open,a catch 22.
The TOS always states your gaming experience may change,this is because if the game changes so badly that you are no longer playing the same game you invested hundreds of dollars into,you may be able to sue them for your money back.These devs got their asses covered with every little sentence in the users agreement,i do not feel sorry for them anymore.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Just because a company puts a disclaimer in their code of conduct or EULA doesn't mean its correct or legal.
Such an issue came up with a skydiving accident. You can have people sign all these legal agreements that seperates them from liablity, but you can't have people sign away legal rights. A Per parachuted and the chute failed to open, they died. The company stated that due to their disclaimer they weren;t liable for the death, but you can't sign away that liablity if it was found out that the company did something to cause the death, the parachute wasn't rolled up and packaged correctly, causing the chute to not deploy.
The issue here is that, once you buy a software, or a product you are allowed to use it to the full extent of the law. Running your own server, useing the software you paid for at the current time is legal. As long as you follow the laws and don't make a monitary gain off their software. Now if you charge people to use your software, and don't make money off the actual aspects/copyright materials of the game youd be fine. Charge a dollar a month to have an account to my hosting space, your not paying for the game or items in the game, your paying for the use of my sevrer, and of the software I wrote to host legal versions (only people who own the game legally, not sure how'd u prove that, it could be your downfall....see napster lawsuit) could play the game.
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.
Obviously you can't back that up with anything concrete. Nothing more than an assumption. I disagree.
Most everyone I talk to who did not want to pay for WoW in the beginning was before they bought the game. Then they buy it and play it, and suddenly they understand why these games cost 15 bucks a month!
Making money off a private server s by selling accounts/items is just like selling CD's/DVD's of pirated movies and software. Even an idiot knows that's crossing the line into serious copyright violation. If you aren't making money off it, there's less incentive to sue you because they know you don't have 'illicit' earnings from it.
Way to go Blizzard. They had every right to sue this moron for everything, including the kitchen sink. Stealing is just that, stealing. Using someone elses intelectual property, which they spent millions to create mind you, to make a profit or not is wrong and illiegal. It's no different than if someone toke your car without your permission and offered rides to everyone who didnt want to pay for gas.
Yeah, I see no real difference between this and gold spammers/farmers/account takers.
Oh wait, yes I do. The spammers/farmers/account takers are affect blizzards REAL game every single day. Yet they hardly do a thing about it, except spend lots of money on restoring accounts and the like.
I am glad that Blizzard won this lawsuit, the people deserved it. From what I have seen there are many private servers out there right now for this game, one of them which I dont think im allowed to post the name here, but they are the one who caused Scape Goat to go down in the first place before blizzard sued them I would think.
I just hope that Blizzard can actually get the other private server too which is becomming really big, and write a new patch so in the next expansions that keeps people from being able to run their own servers with their content illegally.
OR wait, maybe Blizzard wants people to run their own private servers, Just so they can sue you for the money, I mean (FREE Money) doesn't really cost them anything, I laughed about this.
Im just glad that Blizzard won, they do not deserve the intellectual proeprty theft no matter how much I like WOLTK the most.
What would really help is if the search engines stop alloweing Hacks,Cheats,Aimbots, and Private Servers in the search engine list.
In this age of rampant digital piracy, companies have little incentive to go after every individual who violates their IP for their own personal use. It is the people that do so to make a profit that are most likely to be targeted and sued. Glad to see corporate justice has prevailed.
And lets not forget the IRS. They going to be wanting taxes out of this person as well. Would not be suprised this moronic private server operator is sent to prison for a very very long time for failure to pay STATE and FEDERAL Income taxes.
This should be lesson to everyone, private servers are not legal. Blizzard should have went after the players who also played on these private servers as well.
explain 2 me why they should have gone after the player, go on make me laugh
To sue someone for trademark or copyright violation, one typically has to prove that some form of tangible financial loss, or damage, occurred. If there is none, it should simply end at a simple cease and desist, unless those accused ignore the court order.
Any instance of steailing IP is automatically construed as causing finacial loss as those playing on the free server could be viewed as possible paying customers for Blizzard.
And, I am sure for this judgment to have been reached, more than one cease and desist must have been sent.
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.
By the way, Blizzard sued the individual. Not the company. She can't declare bankrupcy because she was sued as an indvidual. (From my understanding. I could be wrong)
And like stated many times, I doubt Blizzard cares about getting the money back, it's just a small win to scare the rest of the private servers out there. If I was a private server owner making money, I'd be scared too and try to stop.
The problem was, the lady didn't respond to the court summons, and that is a nono. That 88.5 million is defaulted, and if she were to respond to the court summons, I bet the sum would be a lot less. It was stated that only 3million was made profited, and 85Million was defaulted to the copyright infringement.
"ORDER RE DAMAGES by Judge Stephen V. Wilson,Based on Plaintiffs evidentiary submissions, the Court concludes that Plaintiff is entitled to default judgment in the amount of $3,052,339 in disgorged profits, $85,478,600 in statutory damages, and $63,600 inattorneys fees. The Court will file a separate judgment accordingly. (pj) (Entered: 08/11/2010)"
In all honesty, not being a fanboy, it was her fault she didn't respond to the letters and court summons. Blizzard a bit lucky finding a person stupid enough to not respond, and instead run. Heard she didn't get far. Alias are easily trackable.
hehe poor peyton. I knew scape would end like this. Illegal or not, If scape wasn't there I probably would never went back to the official servers :-) I played there for a few months with some friends who otherwise would never play wow, cause they are against a monthly fee ^^ and I wanted to play with them. The place was really buggy but we had tons of fun. It was known peyton made looooots of money with her servers but no one cared. Blizz sended a lot of letters to different private servers in that time. Most of them pulled the plug at the same day. Because who were running these servers? Students, geeks and fanboys ... people who did it for fun and didn't want to end in jail. But peyton didn't want to quit. So it must be easy for Blizz to sue her.
------------------------------------------------------------------- waiting for ... nothing..
Although the number is a ridiculous 88 million, I'm sure Blizz went into this well knowing they wouldn't get the full amount, but, it is almost a scare tactic to anyone trying to mimic this chicks move. Would you open a private server and attempt to sell items on it for real money, after reading this? You'd have to be out of your mind. They pretty much just ruined this chicks life and I'm sure she's going to be regretting it for a long time.
Rofl, I think you have to be half braindead to even attempt leeching on such a big company. Setting up a private server with your own itemshop ? LOL
I am still pretty sure that running a private server is against the law on some level... If nothing else you are using someones art-assets (that they own the rights to) without a licens. So it might be a minor offence in the grand scheme of things but it is bullshit to say that they are legal clear and free.
LOL! As much as I hate blizzard, and world of warcraft, and wish that whole game/company would burn to the ground, the person who got busted for this deserved it. She was making money off of other others hard work. If she was running a private server that was totally different or not like official, and wasnt profitng, maybe I could see a legal C&D or blizz ignoring it. But to profit so much money over something you stole, well, thats just plain disrespectful.
The private servers have always been something of a gray matter, and in some cases I dont think it directly hurts a company. PRe NGE SWG and old school UO come to mind. There are hundreds of UO private servers right now with active vibrant communites. Im not sure why, perhaps they predate the DMCA signage into law in UO , or maybe because EA-Mythic doesnt care. Who knows.
As for her 88 mil debt, right , like shes going to pay it. Even if they strip all her assets, blizzard wont get probably 80 millionl. And while im not a legal expert, I would imagine if she declares bankruptcy or absolves the debt, im guessing the taxpayers will be stuck with it. lol.
IMO the whole copyright thing and EULA in particualr need to be rexamined. There are alot of problems and loopholes in the laws and EULA and they really need a general legal pass to make sure its up to snuff and is fair to both companies and individuals. One of the persons in this thread mentioned ways she could have avoided the law using offshore companies,, got the money out, or atleast delayed blizzard to the point it did them more harm then good.
On the topic of goldfarming, this is a challenging issue and while I addmitely use to be a big gold buyer and proponent, I have come to realise that buying fake money with real money is A) waste of time and effort, and money, and b) it does hurt the game somewhat.
IGE, I never had a problem with, I always thought they were legit, I came to think gold farmers like used care salesman, some are good, some are crooks. I never had my accounts hacked for anygame, however, i do get alot of phishing emails from hackers attempting to grab my wow account that I cancelled, hmm like 2 years ago? So im not really sure
To those complaining about blizz not going after Gold farmers, they (farmers) are smart, and they will fight, and it will cost blizz time and money, assuming they live and operate within US law. Also, the US does not own the planet, as much as we like to pretend we do, so all those companies based out of china/tawain or whatever country that do not respect freetrade and our economic system will just laugh and throw a rock at us.
Case in point, The music industry spent tons of monies fighting in other governments courts(lol) for piracy isseus and they wasted so much and got so little. While its unfortenant, we have yet to realise that not every human on earth believes in what our society believes in, and the sooner we realise that, the sooner well stop spending money combating them in their courts with their customs and more money on making better games for the people who actully purchase them... us gamers!
Comments
You have no idea of how email works or how easy it is to abuse do you? any one care to explain?
I wonder what the implications are, if any, for those working on the private server emulation of pre-CU SWG?
People have tried to make private servers of every older MMO in it's "original" state so they can relive the glory days, it is illegal plain and simply. They generally get shut down the moment the companies find out about them. People have tried it with AC and AC2 many times and then once it's starts to get talked about a bit the site disappears every time.
How wrong you are. L2J for example is quite legal and ncsoft are fully aware of it. At least do some research and not just go with what you have seen thinking emulators = ilegal cause well then you just well fail.
I do find it rather amusing that a company who stole its entire IP (Warcraft / Starcraft) from another company (Gamesworkshop) to sue someone for infringement.
Lets not forget angrathar gate *cough tolkien lotr angmar cough* *cough major rip off cough*
You can not advertise the name or logo without their permission.You own absolutely NOTHING of the game.If site A is paying Blizzard 500 bucks a month and you are paying nothing,then site A complains,Blizzard WILL shut you down.The foremost leader of this very such activity is Hasbro.
As far as the servers go Blizzard already shut down an operation in the very first year that ONLY had the software,they had no intention what so ever of running any server,and Blizzard won that legal battle as well,so anyone trying to claim you can run a private server using another game's name and logo are way out to lunch.
What i would like to know is where is the millions to allow us the users who pay for their lawyers to sue them when we feel the need?Gaming is a one ticket,the laws and big lawyers protect the developers not the little guys.This is why they have a nicely worded TOS that by the way you can only read AFTER you open the software,then they claim you cannot return it after it is open,a catch 22.
The TOS always states your gaming experience may change,this is because if the game changes so badly that you are no longer playing the same game you invested hundreds of dollars into,you may be able to sue them for your money back.These devs got their asses covered with every little sentence in the users agreement,i do not feel sorry for them anymore.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Just because a company puts a disclaimer in their code of conduct or EULA doesn't mean its correct or legal.
Such an issue came up with a skydiving accident. You can have people sign all these legal agreements that seperates them from liablity, but you can't have people sign away legal rights. A Per parachuted and the chute failed to open, they died. The company stated that due to their disclaimer they weren;t liable for the death, but you can't sign away that liablity if it was found out that the company did something to cause the death, the parachute wasn't rolled up and packaged correctly, causing the chute to not deploy.
The issue here is that, once you buy a software, or a product you are allowed to use it to the full extent of the law. Running your own server, useing the software you paid for at the current time is legal. As long as you follow the laws and don't make a monitary gain off their software. Now if you charge people to use your software, and don't make money off the actual aspects/copyright materials of the game youd be fine. Charge a dollar a month to have an account to my hosting space, your not paying for the game or items in the game, your paying for the use of my sevrer, and of the software I wrote to host legal versions (only people who own the game legally, not sure how'd u prove that, it could be your downfall....see napster lawsuit) could play the game.
Obviously you can't back that up with anything concrete. Nothing more than an assumption. I disagree.
Most everyone I talk to who did not want to pay for WoW in the beginning was before they bought the game. Then they buy it and play it, and suddenly they understand why these games cost 15 bucks a month!
Making money off a private server s by selling accounts/items is just like selling CD's/DVD's of pirated movies and software. Even an idiot knows that's crossing the line into serious copyright violation. If you aren't making money off it, there's less incentive to sue you because they know you don't have 'illicit' earnings from it.
Way to go Blizzard. They had every right to sue this moron for everything, including the kitchen sink. Stealing is just that, stealing. Using someone elses intelectual property, which they spent millions to create mind you, to make a profit or not is wrong and illiegal. It's no different than if someone toke your car without your permission and offered rides to everyone who didnt want to pay for gas.
Yeah, I see no real difference between this and gold spammers/farmers/account takers.
Oh wait, yes I do. The spammers/farmers/account takers are affect blizzards REAL game every single day. Yet they hardly do a thing about it, except spend lots of money on restoring accounts and the like.
For the record its called "in the black" when your making money.
I am glad that Blizzard won this lawsuit, the people deserved it. From what I have seen there are many private servers out there right now for this game, one of them which I dont think im allowed to post the name here, but they are the one who caused Scape Goat to go down in the first place before blizzard sued them I would think.
I just hope that Blizzard can actually get the other private server too which is becomming really big, and write a new patch so in the next expansions that keeps people from being able to run their own servers with their content illegally.
OR wait, maybe Blizzard wants people to run their own private servers, Just so they can sue you for the money, I mean (FREE Money) doesn't really cost them anything, I laughed about this.
Im just glad that Blizzard won, they do not deserve the intellectual proeprty theft no matter how much I like WOLTK the most.
What would really help is if the search engines stop alloweing Hacks,Cheats,Aimbots, and Private Servers in the search engine list.
In this age of rampant digital piracy, companies have little incentive to go after every individual who violates their IP for their own personal use. It is the people that do so to make a profit that are most likely to be targeted and sued. Glad to see corporate justice has prevailed.
explain 2 me why they should have gone after the player, go on make me laugh
666
yeah, well the world is unfair, people violate the terms every day.
Only in America does something like this happen.
Any instance of steailing IP is automatically construed as causing finacial loss as those playing on the free server could be viewed as possible paying customers for Blizzard.
And, I am sure for this judgment to have been reached, more than one cease and desist must have been sent.
This.
By the way, Blizzard sued the individual. Not the company. She can't declare bankrupcy because she was sued as an indvidual. (From my understanding. I could be wrong)
And like stated many times, I doubt Blizzard cares about getting the money back, it's just a small win to scare the rest of the private servers out there. If I was a private server owner making money, I'd be scared too and try to stop.
The problem was, the lady didn't respond to the court summons, and that is a nono. That 88.5 million is defaulted, and if she were to respond to the court summons, I bet the sum would be a lot less. It was stated that only 3million was made profited, and 85Million was defaulted to the copyright infringement.
"ORDER RE DAMAGES by Judge Stephen V. Wilson,Based on Plaintiffs evidentiary submissions, the Court concludes that Plaintiff is entitled to default judgment in the amount of $3,052,339 in disgorged profits, $85,478,600 in statutory damages, and $63,600 inattorneys fees. The Court will file a separate judgment accordingly. (pj) (Entered: 08/11/2010)"
In all honesty, not being a fanboy, it was her fault she didn't respond to the letters and court summons. Blizzard a bit lucky finding a person stupid enough to not respond, and instead run. Heard she didn't get far. Alias are easily trackable.
hehe poor peyton. I knew scape would end like this. Illegal or not, If scape wasn't there I probably would never went back to the official servers :-) I played there for a few months with some friends who otherwise would never play wow, cause they are against a monthly fee ^^ and I wanted to play with them. The place was really buggy but we had tons of fun. It was known peyton made looooots of money with her servers but no one cared. Blizz sended a lot of letters to different private servers in that time. Most of them pulled the plug at the same day. Because who were running these servers? Students, geeks and fanboys ... people who did it for fun and didn't want to end in jail. But peyton didn't want to quit. So it must be easy for Blizz to sue her.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
waiting for ... nothing..
Rofl, I think you have to be half braindead to even attempt leeching on such a big company. Setting up a private server with your own itemshop ? LOL
I am still pretty sure that running a private server is against the law on some level... If nothing else you are using someones art-assets (that they own the rights to) without a licens. So it might be a minor offence in the grand scheme of things but it is bullshit to say that they are legal clear and free.
This have been a good conversation
LOL! As much as I hate blizzard, and world of warcraft, and wish that whole game/company would burn to the ground, the person who got busted for this deserved it. She was making money off of other others hard work. If she was running a private server that was totally different or not like official, and wasnt profitng, maybe I could see a legal C&D or blizz ignoring it. But to profit so much money over something you stole, well, thats just plain disrespectful.
The private servers have always been something of a gray matter, and in some cases I dont think it directly hurts a company. PRe NGE SWG and old school UO come to mind. There are hundreds of UO private servers right now with active vibrant communites. Im not sure why, perhaps they predate the DMCA signage into law in UO , or maybe because EA-Mythic doesnt care. Who knows.
As for her 88 mil debt, right , like shes going to pay it. Even if they strip all her assets, blizzard wont get probably 80 millionl. And while im not a legal expert, I would imagine if she declares bankruptcy or absolves the debt, im guessing the taxpayers will be stuck with it. lol.
IMO the whole copyright thing and EULA in particualr need to be rexamined. There are alot of problems and loopholes in the laws and EULA and they really need a general legal pass to make sure its up to snuff and is fair to both companies and individuals. One of the persons in this thread mentioned ways she could have avoided the law using offshore companies,, got the money out, or atleast delayed blizzard to the point it did them more harm then good.
On the topic of goldfarming, this is a challenging issue and while I addmitely use to be a big gold buyer and proponent, I have come to realise that buying fake money with real money is A) waste of time and effort, and money, and b) it does hurt the game somewhat.
IGE, I never had a problem with, I always thought they were legit, I came to think gold farmers like used care salesman, some are good, some are crooks. I never had my accounts hacked for anygame, however, i do get alot of phishing emails from hackers attempting to grab my wow account that I cancelled, hmm like 2 years ago? So im not really sure
To those complaining about blizz not going after Gold farmers, they (farmers) are smart, and they will fight, and it will cost blizz time and money, assuming they live and operate within US law. Also, the US does not own the planet, as much as we like to pretend we do, so all those companies based out of china/tawain or whatever country that do not respect freetrade and our economic system will just laugh and throw a rock at us.
Case in point, The music industry spent tons of monies fighting in other governments courts(lol) for piracy isseus and they wasted so much and got so little. While its unfortenant, we have yet to realise that not every human on earth believes in what our society believes in, and the sooner we realise that, the sooner well stop spending money combating them in their courts with their customs and more money on making better games for the people who actully purchase them... us gamers!