Blizzard Sues Private Server Company, Awarded $88M 356
Cali Thalen writes "A private server company, Scapegaming (aka Alyson Reeves), was ordered to pay Blizzard Entertainment over $88 million in damages after losing a lawsuit that was concluded last week. Scapegaming was operating unauthorized World of Warcraft servers and using a micropayment system to collect money from the servers' user base, which according to the lawsuit amounted to just over $3 million. $85 million of that settlement was for statutory damages, and surprisingly only $63,000 in attorney's fees."
Who runs an illegal game server with a real name? (Score:2)
QQ Alyson Reeves?
Re:Who runs an illegal game server with a real nam (Score:4, Insightful)
Somewhere along the chain, you have to pay for the hosting. Plus if you're getting money, there's another paper trail.
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The problem starts when you want to withdraw money to a bank to get cash - or buy something online which requires shipping.
Or do pretty much anything else with it. Really, try and find a way to actually use money garnered anonymously without leaving a trail for the courts to find.
Breaking a paper trail is damn difficult, and moreover tends to run into laws and agencies regarding money laundering. So if the people mentioned in the article had done so, they'd go from being pursued by Blizzard's lawyers to being pursued by the FBI, IRS or other TLAgency. Not really much of an improvement...
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Nope, I wouldn't imagine anyone with two brain cells would use an online service to (attempt to) launder money. That's what bars, restaurants, and other businesses where lots of cash is exchanged and there are lots of "perishable" items that can be lost, destroyed, misdirected, etc. are for.
Services on that private server? (Score:2, Interesting)
I can understand playing on private servers if it's free, but if you're going to pay money to play on a private server, why not just pay Blizzard and play on official servers? Usually the private servers are a little behind on content anyway.
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What I'm amazed is they got the server software in the first place. I guess the client software can be reversed engineered to point the client to the private server, but getting the inhouse server software is gotta be tough thing to do?
WoW server emulators have been around for years. The guy built nothing, he was most likely using an open source software like Mangos.
Actually, in short, this guy made 3 millions while doing no work at all. He was using blizzard's and mango's work,
His only benefit is that he managed to market it. Much like Apple. They steal and sell crap, but marketing is the key to become rich.
Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
I do have a problem with the damages awarded though... I mean - How in the world did they come up with this figure?
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Get the outlandish number out during trial, reduced on appeal. It'll probably go down to $30 mil, losses + statuatory damages. (With corporations, at least , the magic multiplyer is 9 I think. So if they cause $10 mil in damages, the most the statuatory can be is $90.)
Still, there's documentation that this person's on the hook for an absolute bare minimum of $3+ mil... Consider the rest of it an idiot tax. Seriously, you're charging for a server running a Blizzard game? And you don't expect to get cau
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If I were going to do something like this I would assume I would get caught.
Now, if I managed to bring it to a rather fruitful set of earnings I might do one of two things. Attempt to work within the structure of the law to minimize damages to myself or blatantly work outside the law and optimize for monetary gain. Perhaps, there was yet a third view point in that the scenario ended with a friendly take down. Though that would just be rather unrealistic optimism.
Whatever the outcome I would assume it was cl
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought that sum was rather modest. Remember all the RIAA cases? THOSE were excessive.
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Informative)
They're called statutory damages for a reason. It's precalculated by a statute (hence the name) or a law. Given that the lawyer's fees were so low...likely Blizzard wasn't considering asking for so much (especially given likely inability to repay such an amount), but was given little to no say in it, given that it was a DEFAULT judgement (defendant never responded despite being served/summoned), and hence not argued "in trial".
It was a lengthy, boring series of motions that was never once contested.
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I don't think there's really a way to turn it around and make excuses for the hosting company.
Really? Let me give it a shot.
Before the expansion packs came out, the original game cost somewhere around $40-$50 (if memory serves me). Each expansion, if you bought them when they were new, cost something like $40. I already paid Blizzard $110-$120 for the software (theoretically -- I've only paid about $80 for WoW software, personally). Blizzard is the one that decided that the software and the servers you subscribe to are two separate products, so they can kiss my ass if they want to stop me from getti
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Really? |I'm not sure what the hosting company did wrong.
I can't see what they "copied". They provided an alternative service for people who legitimately bought copies of WoW. Disallowing use of private servers sounds like Microsoft disallowing difference search engines for Internet Explorer.
Nope, they provided a service for everybody, even people who never ever bought WoW. You can download the client from Blizzard's ftp site - what you need to play on Blizzard's servers is an account. So what the hosting company did was allow people to play WoW without ever having paid Blizzard for the game, and they even made money out of it.
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Except that your computer software doesn't need World of Warcraft to run. A pretty big difference.
The summary is light on details. Citation please?
Are they actually distributing the WoW software (client-side)? Or, are they just letting people who bought the client in the store connect to somebody else's servers without paying $x per month to Blizard or whatever?
If they don't distribute anything, then they aren't violating copyright, period. If people are using pirated clients to connect to the service, t
cheap lawyer! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Do staff lawyers' salaries count towards that figure? It seems like they wouldn't.
Re:cheap lawyer! (Score:4, Informative)
Actually that's a bit unfair. They didn't know this was going to be uncontested so they had to make sure all the evidence was checked out and in order, and research appropriate case law. Still seems like a fair whack of cash though.
Normally (Score:2)
Normally I don't feel that copyright infringement is a big deal, or automatically a bad thing, especially when it breaks down artificial limitations and restrictions.
But profiting from other people's work, work that you have no rights to, is just wrong.
Doesn't seem to be any details on what the microtransactions were for here, but apparently they were selling in-game items for real money. I find that disgusting even when it's legit. Ruins the value of actually playing the game.
DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:DEFAULT JUDGEMENT (Score:4, Informative)
There was only $63,600 in attorney fees because that's what they're capped at, per C.D. Cal. Local Rule 55-3 in a default judgment ($5,600 plus 2% of the amount over $100,000; they used the PayPal amount of $3,000,000 (rounded)): http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/CACD/LocRules.nsf/a224d2a6f8771599882567cc005e9d79/0d9758b2da11901188256dc5005973fd?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,55-3 [uscourts.gov]
The defendant was served, personally, by a P.I. / process server, who swore an affidavit.
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I used to play on that one. (Score:5, Interesting)
Played on it a long time ago when it was still known as WoWScape. It was the whole reason I actually started playing on retail, me and a good portion of my friends. Blizzard would have lost out on thousands of dollars from me and my friends if it wasn't for them.
Scapegaming actually was good enough that it got me (Feral druid), my best friend (Rogue), his roommate (Resto shaman), his roommates friends (Enhance shaman), their wife (Arms Warrior), neighbor down the road (Ret Paladin), Another friend (rogue), step brother (Rogue), another friend (Mage), and a few others. WoWScape actually got enough friends playing retail that we could host our own personal raids if we wanted.
Since then, all of us left. Scapegaming brought Blizzard a lot of business, but The Wrath of the Lich King ran them off. Only way I can tolerate WoW anymore is if I find an old TBC server now. Lasted till just before ICC was released on retail, but I just can't stand it anymore, it just isn't fun. Was fun back in the day raiding Kara, SSC, and the Eye just playing around, talking shit in Vent and having fun while half of them were wasted and still able to hold their own. Then 3.0 had to come and ruin it.
I honestly wonder about how much did Scapegaming make blizzard compared to how much it cost them. Wouldn't be surprised if it did them more good than harm. And don't try and mention the trail accounts on WoW, they capped you at level 10 and a bunch of other stuff, none of my friends were willing to try it like that. Actually downloaded the software off the internet months before we ever thought about registering a retail account.
Re:I used to play on that one. (Score:5, Insightful)
All my friends are leaving WoW. Cataclysm is running them off. Only way I can tolerate WoW anymore is if I don't pay attention to the Cataclysm stuff. It just isn't fun anymore. Was fun back in the day raiding Naxx, Ulduar, and ToC just playing around, talking shit in Vent and having fun while half of them were wasted still able to hold their own. Now this Cataclysm is gonna come along and ruin it.
Or maybe I'm just tired of playing WoW, yeah that could be it...
Re:I used to play on that one. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd say you are tired of WoW (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing wrong with that, I've gotten tired of it several times. Just stop playing it. If you feel like playing again later, come back. It doesn't have to be some epic decision or involve drama, just shut down your account, and if you want turn it back on later. Interest in games can wax and wane, in particular if you've played for a long time.
Generally the people I see who complain about a new expansion just need a break. Things are going to change and many people don't like change. So they get angry about it, rather than considering if actually it might be fun. Just take a break. Also one problem Blizzard does have for sure given their long expansion cycles and ridiculous gear scaling rates is that there isn't a tons to do before a new expansion comes out. No problem, just stop playing then. Cancel your account and wait until the expansion hits and then reactive. Or don't, if you've found another game you like better.
It needn't be a big deal.
All I heard was (Score:2, Funny)
Nuclear lawsuit detected.
Blizzard Sues (Score:2)
UOGamers (Score:2)
So does this precedent put other popular private servers for other popular MMORPGs in danger too, like the UOGamers private server of Ultima Online? (http://uogamers.com)
Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
Blizzard charge for the client, plus separate subscription fees to hook up to their servers. There is a clear separation of the money you pay for the client, and the money you pay to access Blizzards servers. The client is typically bought or downloaded and therefore once you've bought it you are free to use it as you wish, provided you don't distribute copies.
In theory, there should be nothing unlawful against hooking up to a different server as there is a clear separation here. The protocol can and has been reverse engineered The only question is whether any of Blizzards proprietary data is held on the server and "distributed" to the clients.
Presumably, the in-game items are not transferable from a private server to Blizzards server, so no issues there either.
This judgement was not defended, so the question arises as to whether it would be possible to mount a defence so as to make non-Blizzard servers legitimate?
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Blizzard charge for the client, plus separate subscription fees to hook up to their servers. There is a clear separation of the money you pay for the client, and the money you pay to access Blizzards servers. The client is typically bought or downloaded and therefore once you've bought it you are free to use it as you wish, provided you don't distribute copies.
In theory, there should be nothing unlawful against hooking up to a different server as there is a clear separation here. The protocol can and has been reverse engineered The only question is whether any of Blizzards proprietary data is held on the server and "distributed" to the clients.
Presumably, the in-game items are not transferable from a private server to Blizzards server, so no issues there either.
This judgement was not defended, so the question arises as to whether it would be possible to mount a defence so as to make non-Blizzard servers legitimate?
The client is free, but when you download it, you agree (license agreement) to only use it to connect to official Blizzard servers. So there is no "I paid for it, I can do whatever I want with it".
To be honest, I can't really stand all this "private server operators aren't doing anything wrong!" crap anymore. It's just BS. I can understand it for games like Starcraft 1, Diablo 1 and 2 and others which you buy once and then the connection even to the official servers is free. You are doing Blizzard no harm w
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Oh a Blizzard employee!
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I don't think that's technically how they look at it. It seems more like you pay to set up an account to play on the servers. You can download the whole client for free from Blizzard, even without a WoW subscription.
Some of the data that the servers use, however, is not in that client. Obviously, all the art and sound assets are included in the client, as is the gameworld's terrain, but most of the actual gameplay-related data is provided by the server.
Please sue these Blizzard (Score:2)
I try to be nice and keep on reporting phishes regarding WoW for weeks now, it has become kinda absurd as they are actually buying domains which contains their trademark and serving phishes for days.
Look at the live phishes (means, please don't go to them) right now, which are "online".
http://www.phishtank.com/target_search.php?target_id=88&valid=All&active=y&Search=Search [phishtank.com]
These are the WoW phishing pages. Some very known hosting companies (not some garage guys) are also being used. I think if Bl
Did anyone RTFA? (Score:3, Informative)
It looks like:
- Alyson never responded to any service, complaint, or judgement. Default. MAYBE Scapegaming gets an appeal of the judgement, but that will require showing that multiple services were deficient. Good luck with that.
- Blizzard's counsel repeatedly failed. Insufficient service, missed deadlines, one dismissal for failure to prosecute. I think $63k is overpaying them.
- A judge recused themselves. Interesting, must have had stock or played in their free time...?
- This has been going on for nearly a year. Seems that Blizzard could have wrapped this up in 3 months had they been diligent.
Wow. Overall, a good case study in how long you can string out a suit by doing NOTHING. I'm surprised the judge let them reinstate.
Oh well, expect this to result in no money, siezure, and no more Scapegaming. Alyson will probably change her name, change the server names on the new hoster, and Blizzard will play whack-a-mole chasing her around. Funny.
Re:Blizzard? (Score:5, Insightful)
God knows Blizzard did not mind private servers before this (because they sucked).
What? Remember Blizzard v. bnetd?
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i hope you are kidding. Why was a simple change of name not sufficient then?
What they did mind was bnetd ignoring cd key checks and the fact that bnetd was a direct competition to their platform. If blizzard wanted, they could implement some cdkey authorization scheme for external servers and require all to use it, but they chose to kill the project entirely.
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This is something I never understood. How exactly does Blizzard "require" completely independent parties to do anything?
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with frivolous lawsuits of course :)
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talking of which $88M is a joke of a penalty for an infringer that earned $3M out of its activities. Who can take a society seriously that behaves in this manner, its like Monty Python threatening to stamp on all the bits after they have hacked you to death with a sword. Why is money dealt with in this childish emotional way instead of in an analytic and realistic way? Its not as if the remaining $85M were translated into years in prison for example. What a sad society.
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There doesn't need to be a disincentive. That only applies to criminal actions.
Its no different than if you sue a previous landlord for your deposit back on an apartment. The most you can get is the cost of the damages (the deposit) + the legal fees to recover it. It isn't like they fine the landlord extra for being wrong about owing you the deposit.
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Because it's under the control of the ones that have it.
It is a sad society, Coastwalker, and coming apart before our eyes.
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Put another way, why can't the average Joe get 88/3rds in punitive damages? Why does the average person wining a suit face a cap of triple damages, even after he or she has been required to prove that there's more than simple negligence involved, but some entities don't? What makes them special under law?
Re:Blizzard? (Score:4, Informative)
The bnetd developers had the game, which they reverse engineered, which meant they had agreed to the EULA which prohibits reverse engineering.
According to the court's summary judgement, the developers were bound by the EULA, which they were in breach of.
The developer's argued that "CD Keys" are not an anti-piracy measure, and 'battle.net' was not a valid trademark. Probably these arguments were a bit reaching... if CD Keys are not an anti-piracy measure, then what is their purpose?
On appeal... BNETD was ruled a circumvention tool based on Blizzard's argument.
Developers argued EULA is overriden by the DMCA interoperability exception.
They failed to convince the court of the applicability of the exception to their situation.
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Re:Blizzard? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thing is, there's a bnetd-derived server running now, called iCCup [iccup.com] which is the server of choice for almost anyone playing Starcraft (BroodWar, not 2) these days. Not only does it ignore CD checks but iCCup will offer you a chopped-down copy of Starcraft to play on, if you look hard enough. There doesn't seem to be any great rush from Blizzard to stomp it off the net, either.
Blizzard seems to be ambivalent about iCCup. It has called it a "pirate server", but it has also linked to ongoing iCCup tournaments from the battlenet homepage, which is probably because it has realised that the vast majority of people still playing BroodWar (legitimately as well as otherwise) much prefer iCCup to battlenet, to the extent that if you don't know your iCCup ranking, you really can't call yourself a Starcraft player.
Likely, that's because iCCup has a functioning ladder system, and the admins do keep iCCup relatively free of cheats, and the worst of the foulmouthed little brats you get playing online games, unlike battlenet, which is a cesspool in comparison. The "pirate server" offers, for free, a better service than the one that Starcraft players generally paid for, and Blizzard has realised that allowing overt (if discreet) piracy is a small price to pay for keeping a functioning community centred around some of their products.
Re:Blizzard? (Score:4, Interesting)
lol, imagine the unrecoverable loss of loyalty among the sc fans if blizzard tried to do anything with iccup. That would be a PR suicide and they wouldn't sell a single copy of any game to the hardcore sc players, ever. I remember how people on sc portals reacted when that explicit 'iccup is a pirate server' talk happened. Everybody felt offended to the bone.
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Re:Blizzard? (Score:5, Insightful)
That was WAY before Activision. They report their income on different balance sheets; the only effective change in Blizzard mindset was the part where they went public.
Activision has nothing to do with anything they've done recently, and anyone who says otherwise is blaming something they don't like on a company of convinence.
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Im sure they are against them.. but only bother suing profiteers
You are mistaken. [wikipedia.org]
LK
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I was in ACM at UCSD with Mark Baysinger. If he made Bnetd because of how hard it was to connect when at our LAN parties, it had a fully legitimate purpose.
His only real failure was not having a couple million lying around in his pocket to counter Blizzard's lawyers.
Silly, poor college students.
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Oh they did indeed mind them. There were the guys who got shut down for cloning Battle.net (for either Starcraft or Diablo II purposes iirc) and they made sure to shut down the server being run by my brother and his friends. Vivendi Universal isn't a nicer company than Activision.
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The difference here seems to be that they were explicitly soliciting money for in-game stuff, rather than accepting donations purely to offset hosting costs. (Eg, most private servers aren't going to be needing 3 million dollars just to host it.)
Some of the language that Activision/Blizzard uses in the briefs are unnerving (such as 'unauthorized client' and 'you must be connected to blizz servers onlien to patch, not use blizz-provided offline patcher files').
If you also RTFA, it was a default judgment, mea
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I'll be the first to say that blizzard suing the Glider people and claiming that "copying the software into ram is making a copy and counts as copyright infringement."
And I even have a private server of my own. I think it should fall under fair use, if I want to use the software I purchased a licence for but don't want t
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Re:Blizzard? (Score:5, Informative)
look what they did to the custom map scene. They created that incredibly powerful editor that dwarfs anything that was done before but they pretty much killed it with ridiculous restrictions. Warcraft 3 thrived on map making, i suspect that half the people owning wc3 never bothered to play ladder matches.
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/ [battle.net]
look at popular topics section:
- Allow authors to cross-realm publish
yup, people can't publish their maps globally, they do it on their server only
- A short rant on SC2 and general censorship
list of censored words is very long and includes such words as suicide - if by any chance you want to write 'banelings suicide attack' somewhere in your map or words like bullshit that can be found in the single player, the map can be even banned. No idea if the words that are filtered out in other places like black, white trans(port), (g)rape cause problems but i think they do
- Want "Custom Game"? Go back to WC3 or SC1.
says all - despite primitive editors you enjoy more fun and freedom in the realm of custom games. You have the control over the rules and players that join and you, also you can name your game to broadcast rules (people playing dota add a lot of codes to the game name so people know what they join) or desired skill level. People have none of that in sc2 and maps are sorted by populatity (self perpetuating scheme, new maps can't get high enough to get noticed by more than a handful of people, good luck autofilling all player slots in a reasonable time)
- The new Custom Game system? (What is wrong with it)
other problems - without lan developing multiplayer scenarios is a chore after all debugging is all about running a map, finding a problem, trying to fix it, running a map again, wash rinse repeat. To do that you need to use bnet which adds considerable amount of time to the development process, testing from the editor level is not sufficient in all but the simpliest cases
- The Real Problem with Custom Maps
5 out of 10 most popular threads on the forum touch mapmaking/publishing alone. It shows how messed up it became thanks to the control freaks in actiblizz
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http://www.google.com/finance?q=activision [google.com]
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the episodic nature of sc2 strangely fits the activision doctrine of 'milk the franchise for at least $100M every year till it runs into the ground spectacularly'. 3 installments of sc2 were supposed to allow for a more epic feel but my experience with Wings of Liberty is the opposite. Story is watered down very badly, 2/3 of all missions are nothing but fillers, not to mention a considerable number of retcons that kill the continuity for old time sc1 fans.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm, yes, actually. And this is exactly the sort of thing the law is intended to defend against.
Here we have a case of someone infringing Blizzard's work for the explicit case of making money off it without getting Blizzard's permission. You don't get a more clear cut case than that.
One can argue the statuatory damage claim is outlandish, and it'll likely be reduced on appeal (it always is...), but Alyson here is still going to be on the hook for a decent chunk if $3 mil was brought in.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:4, Interesting)
What I'm wondering is whether or not anything significant was actually copied. Was the private server just duplicating the game's protocol, or was the game world actually duplicated?
Looking through the information linked to in the summary, it looks like there was no actual debate on anything. The judgement was default.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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I'm intimately aware that protocols can't be protected by copyright. I figured they were probably including files, though from TFA, that's never clear. Being a default judgement, it's altogether possible that the actual material being copied was never even looked at.
Patents also do not apply to protocols, since they must cover a specific mechanism, such as an algorithm. Now, if the protocol requires encryption or encoding using a patented algorithm, that's a problem.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:4, Interesting)
Private servers require a user to have a copy of the full game in question. The "player and enemy models, sound effects, and all that" are handled by the client.
However, the private server generally has its own copy of the game data in order to maintain the state of the world, where things are supposed to respawn, etc.
I suppose it would be theoretically possible to create a server emulator which didn't use any of the original game's data files, but nobody as attempted it that I have seen.
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And those data files would be installed upon EVERY COMPUTER WHICH HAD WoW INSTALLED. Which means a legitmately-bought game could have the server protocol emulated, and it wouldn't infringe because theoretically everybody has the same WoW-sanctioned and installed patches/updates. (of course, there are pirates/crackers as the exception, but this is given.)
I doubt ANYTHING is handled server-side besides coordinates and flagbits. Everything else, from physics to animation, is done client-side, from locally-inst
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Interesting)
No its definately all server-side, though cached client-side on occasion (which is how the server operators are able to get their hands on it).
If you've ever been playing WoW when the server goes down, you can keep running around cause the client doesn't time you out right away as its still waiting for the server to communicate with it. When you do this, if you keep running far enough in one direction you'll eventually just hit a place where the world 'ends' because you don't have the map data beyond that point.
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Nonsense. There was a tool years ago called "WOWMapView" which allowed you to, completely offline, fly through the map without any clipping. It was an awesome way to see how it was built as well as see things which were not part of world proper(GM Island, the skeleton from the boss in WC3, a developer map that had the words "Chow is my Love Monkey" written in the grass and even a prototype for a map that would later be in the Burning Crusade. No PCs or NPCs, but the entire world geometry was laid bare.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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WOW Emulation servers have built up databases of monster stats, xp tables, etc completely independant of the official game.
Except in cases where these were reverse engineered but reverse engineering for interoperability with the client is a cut and dry case of fair use and there are a number of very high profile examples of this in practice such as wine and the samba project.
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if a server operator gave the clients new map and monster packs just using the WoW engine that would be a lawful reverse engineered product.
however i am unaware of any servers that do that.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they were using actual WoW data files, including player and enemy models, sound effects and all that
server executable doesnt use sound files, wow is so simple (no collision detection) that server side executable also doesnt use player models. Its all a chessboard from server executables perspective.
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The way WoW's server/client model works, a lot of the data about how the game works is client side and your client simulates a lot of it without the server's interference except to get final resolution. You can make a surprisingly effective WoW server emulator just by telling the client whatever it wants to hear, with the server not actually doing anything. In my experience, the majority of players who would play on an emulated server are people who have never played "real" WoW, and often players who have n
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The WoW server doesn't need player or enemy models, it just needs to know a bunch of numbers out of a database, how to manipulate them, and the protocol for communicating with the clients (as well as miscellaneous other things also not related to the models or artwork). Regardless, charging users for things still a blatant violation of the EULA, regardless of your opinion on just running a private server. Both on the server side (the admins have probably played the game before, and likely run around in the
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The server admins aren't responsible for client violations of the EULA.
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Duplicating a protocol though is not wrong or illegal;
But it does breach the contract(s) possibly signed with Blizzard if it asserts the removal of rights including reverse engineering, maintaining or connecting to an unauthorized server (as Blizzard does claim); and a possible DMCA violation if claimed that access to a non-authorized server constitutes copyright protection circumvention (as Blizzard does claim).
EULAs & TOUs have been upheld in the past, so he's probably screwed on count #1 (if appealed). The second argument is new to me, so I don't kno
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Yes, they were using actual WoW data files, including player and enemy models, sound effects and all that. That is clearly infringing on copyrighted material.
If the server host had bought a copy of the game for each server, where is the copyright infringement? I know that there might be some EULA problems, if you live a place where those won't be laughed out of court, but I have a hard time seeing what is so bad here if the copy of the data files on the server is not pirated.
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What I'm wondering is whether or not anything significant was actually copied. Was the private server just duplicating the game's protocol, or was the game world actually duplicated?
WoW private servers generally do duplicate the game world found in Blizzard's game. Much of the graphical data is stored client-side, but all data about where things are and what they're doing is on the server. Many of them try to keep their server software as up-to-date a copy as possible, though some will allow you to do thi
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Feh.
There's nothing here to suggest that they've stolen anything.
It's more like they've bought a legitimate copy of a Hollywood movie, duped it (so what?), and sold tickets to see it in their back yard.
Only the last point has any bearing.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more like they've bought a legitimate copy of a Hollywood movie, duped it (so what?), and sold tickets to see it in their back yard.
Surely it's more like they watched a Hollywood movie, then charged people to watch them reenact it in their back yard with their mates?
Re: (Score:2)
Surely it's more like they charged a bunch of people $1 each to arrange a movie night, and everybody bought their own tickets from a licensed distributor and showed up to the theater at the same time?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, now I understand. It took a car analogy; thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
Only if their mates are required to have voided local movie theater tickets for the same movie to watch. Then it fits.
Re: (Score:2)
So then if they gave away the tickets to the screening in the back yard it would be OK?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"There is zero question that this copyright violation:"
Only in your world. You do realize that reverse engineering for interoperability is actually a textbook case case of fair use? They can replicate anything they can sniff off the wire, including locs for the purpose of inter-operation with the client. This is no different than what is done with wine and samba.
To use a better analogy, this is like building your own theater from scratch (the server), buying a movie and watching it (their client used for re
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Only in your world. You do realize that reverse engineering for interoperability is actually a textbook case case of fair use?
I didn't know "fair use" included charging people monetarily to view the portion you are supposedly "fairly using". Also fair use does not stipulate you can use 100% of the source.
Re: (Score:2)
This was an 8 month trial. Trials themselves usually take years. So the question is, what happened? I too see a default judgement for blizzard. So as usual, nothing big is happening here but plenty will upon appeal.
I'm guessing a lot of the questions asked on slashdot were not covered in the case, if it was that short.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know (or care) about the details and whether this the claims are a stretch.
But assuming she is guilty as claimed then the damages better be more than the $3 mil brought in. Otherwise it's not a deterent, especially considering you won't always get caught.
Re: (Score:2)
Billy: Miss, miss, Johnny stole my toy.
Teacher : Johnny, give Billy his toy, and 12 identical toys as damages.
Billy : Can't I just have a clip around the ear and I'll learn my lesson ?
Teacher : Oh lord no, we can't DISCIPLE children in school. You and your crazy ideas.
You see, 30 years ago, the clip around the ear worked more often than not, and we had a generation that grew up with at least some moral values. Now the only way to scare someone against doing bad things is not just bankrupt them once, but ban
Re: (Score:2)
that's a good thing, at least someone is enjoying life more
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why anyone would pay micro-payments towards a private server is beyond me. If you have ever wasted precious minutes of your life attempting to play on one you will soon see why it's just worth it to fork over 10-15 bucks a month for the real deal.
People pay money because of what you can parts of the games whole you can alter. Remove level caps, allow learning more then 2 core skill sets and then the real "fun" mode when you die, you can stay dead. Like Diablo 2 online's Hardcore mode.
Re: (Score:2)
If you answered "no" to that question, then you probably don't realize that Scapegaming never even showed up in court, which means Blizzard got a default judgement. They could've argued those points in court and perhaps won, but if you don't even bother making the court appointment, then you can't really bitch that the judge is ignorant for following a pretty goddamned clear procedure.
Re: (Score:2)
if you don't even bother making the court appointment, then you can't really bitch that the judge is ignorant for following a pretty goddamned clear procedure.
Who bitched about the judge? I'm bitching about Blizzard's lawyers for even filing the claim.
Re: (Score:2)
.WTF !?
You just edit this text file and it points WoW at a different server.
Just happens that WoW net traffic isn't encrypted and therefore people have reverse engineered the protocol and created their own servers.
Not really any different than any other reverse engineering I've heard of.
Is it copyright infringing if they made their own server software that mimics the client / server protocol?
Is it legal to ask for payment to connect to my web server?
Is it still legal if my server can speak the reverse engineered WoW protocol?
Is it common knowledge that Judges are ignorant of the technology they are asked to provide judgment over?
If you answered "no" to one of these questions you have been qualified as next in line for judicial appointment.
Are you sure their servers did not distribute any material with Blizzard's copyright?
Models? Textures? Maps? Texts? Raid data?
Re: (Score:2)
Are you sure their servers did not distribute any material with Blizzard's copyright?
Models? Textures? Maps?
I'm not an expert on this, having never actually touched WOW, but with most MMOs these are distributed with the client, the server only sends out identifiers to reference the data the client already has.
Texts? Raid data?
As these (typically) reside on the server, I'm not sure how the defendant in this case would have acquired them. From what I've seen of such things before, chances are the server in
Re: (Score:2)
Are you sure their servers did not distribute any material with Blizzard's copyright?
Models? Textures? Maps?
I'm not an expert on this, having never actually touched WOW, but with most MMOs these are distributed with the client, the server only sends out identifiers to reference the data the client already has.
Texts? Raid data?
As these (typically) reside on the server, I'm not sure how the defendant in this case would have acquired them. From what I've seen of such things before, chances are the server in question ran custom-build raids that had little in common with the official Blizzard ones other than (due to the restrictions imposed by the client) using locations and creatures that Blizzard designed.
So, then there's an additional question. If you make a raid that uses Blizzard's stuff (monsters, textures etc), is the raid derivative work under the copyright law, even if the stuff you actually distribute doesn't contain copies of Blizzard's stuff, but depends on the client already having copies?
This is an issue that applies to a lot of digital data (for example, just about any map/level for any game with level editor available), so there must be legal precedent, if the copyright law itself isn't clear o
Re: (Score:2)
Look at the WoW server like a website, and the client like a web browser. It's a very apt comparison.
So, the private server companies are making their own websites! Obviously, there's nothing wrong with making a website.
There is, however, something wrong with copying another website in its entirety, or even with minor changes. That's what the private servers do. It's not really about the protocol.
At least, I assume this is what the lawyers would say if anybody showed up to argue with them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)