Blizzard sues emu wow server and wins 88million dollars

[Tiggles]

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/0...M?from=twitter

Looks like the guy charged people to play there and made 3 million in the process. Serves him right then.

[vincin]

omg. will this happen to project 99? or is it because he he charged them? Please dont happen to p99,...its better than the current eq

[jyaku]

yea it's because he charged, if you use something thats copywritten without making money on it your fine, but the minute you start making money from it you have to pay to use it

[guineapig]

Also p99 isn't distributing the source material. We have to obtain a copy of Titanium ourselves.

[Tiggles]

Yeah blizzard has even admitted it wont go after the pirate starcraft servers because they don't charge for anything. They only go after people trying to get rich off others work.

[Itchybottom]

Originally Posted by jyaku [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

yea it's because he charged, if you use something thats copywritten without making money on it your fine, but the minute you start making money from it you have to pay to use it

I keep seeing this, but it's quite false. I'm not a lawyer, but I've read a few cases where the plaintiff has been successful at shutting down a resource, or suing the person for copyright violation.

Intellectual property such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft emulated servers fall under derivative work clauses in copyright law. You can borrow quite a few things (ideas) from something like EverQuest or WoW lore, but there isn't really a clean cut and dry definition of law on fictional characters, lore, worlds, and names that have clear copyrights in such an environment. This grey area is a real bear to tackle and will get you screwed if anything ever gets as far as a court date. When it comes to infringing on a copyright, the plaintiff just needs to prove that the work in question has been based upon the original copyrighted work. The rulings of note usually stipulate "Translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form which a work may be recast, transformed or adapted." Clearly, Project 1999 falls into this category.

Like the actual lawyer that posted on this forum though, I'm not worried.

[Reiker]

SoE shut down Winter's Roar (came back as Shards of Dalaya) for about a year. That was a long time ago and hasn't happened since.

[jeffd]

they were sued for damages because the emu server was charging people.

as long as freeshards aren't actively making profit, gaming companies generally turn a blind eye, since going after them all would be way more trouble than it's worth.

[Reiker]

Winter's Roar? They weren't charging anyone. SOE hit them with a C&D and Wiz didn't have the money to spend on lawyers and stuff. They waited about a year, changed the name, and haven't been bothered since.

[jeffd]

i was talking about the skapegaming server.

an $88m lawsuit against a server like p99 would just get tossed out, though SOE could certainly serve them with a C&D if they really cared enough. but doing that would really just waste a little of SOE's time and money without much benefit, so they'll never bother.