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Blizzard Sues Private Server Company, Awarded $88M
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."
God knows Blizzard did not mind private servers before this (because they sucked).
What? Remember Blizzard v. bnetd?
Oh they cared before. Remember BnetD?
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.
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.
there was only $63,000 is attorneys fees because it was a default judgement and they did not have to present a case in front of the court. Likey the person will claim they were never served and demand there day in court. the judge will overturn the default judgement and the case will start over... or she will declare bankruptcy and the judgement will be discharged.. but maybe they will recover some of the 3 million
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.
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?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon