Oh you have a freeshard? That'll be $88m please!

[IainC]

From Slashdot.

Uncontested so the legal fees were practically free at only 63k, 3 million more as the money made from the service and the rest of the 85 million or so is statutory damages - which is enough to build WoW 2.

[rattran]

It would be if they had a hope in hell of collecting that $88mil.

[Rendakor]

It's not really a freeshard if they made $3 million from it.

[LC]

The version of the story I read said 3 million was a made up generous estimate from blizzard.

[Kageru]

This is news how? Running an unauthorized copy of WoW as a commercial venture is fairly obvious lawyer-bait. And they didn't even bother contesting it.

I have some sympathy for "Ethical Piracy" if it's keeping an online game running when the copyright owner is no longer interested in doing so (for example a Hellgate server) but that is hardly a possible argument here.

and 88 million of that is Statutory damages not determined in any way by Blizzard?

The microtransactions were "donations" and you received "Donation Gear" which was ridiculously statted gear. Totally not worth it, yet you'd see people running around in armor they paid $100 for, generally camping people in front of BT. -
(ToxicPopsicle)

[Rendakor]

I'm with Kageru here; I don't see how you can run a WoW Private Server for profit and not expect legal consequences.

[NiX]

Funny that Blizzard paid 63K to sue someone who never showed up in court and I imagine they'll never get a dime out of them.

[Lantyssa]

Protection of copyright.  It's worth it to their interests and as a deterrent.

[Merusk]

Yep. If they don't defend it with a suit, then their copyright can away as an assumed forfeiture. (So far as my understanding of copyright goes.) Which would be a very stupid thing to do.

It's the same reason Disney sues daycares that paint their characters on the wall and LucasArts tosses litigation at anything that even looks like a lightsaber.  They know it's horrible PR and the masses will pillory them for it, but they have to because if they don't then someone actually looking to illegitimately profit off their IP will seize that opportunity and run with it.

[Kageru]

I believe that only applies for trademarks.

Blizzard doesn't really need a reason and most players are unlikely to notice or care and even less likely to sympathise much with the people who owned or played on it.

[Shatter]

They wont see a dime of this money

[Trippy]

I believe that only applies for trademarks.

That's correct.

[Musashi]

I'd have more sympathy if they weren't trying to make money off it.

[UnSub]

I don't support pirate servers, but christ, that's excessive damages.

[NiX]

What kind of statutory damages get up to 88 million? No wonder all US cases have crazy settlements.

[Goreschach]

The fact that the statutory damages are much, much higher than this ramshackle operation could ever pay is irrelevant. They're set like that because WoW is such a huge moneymaker, and they don't want to give the possibility later down the line of some more well funded group saying "Three million dollars? Lets do this!"

[IainC]

What kind of statutory damages get up to 88 million? No wonder all US cases have crazy settlements.

It was calculated as $200 per user and there were apparently 427,000 or so active accounts.

Court documents show 40k or so active users in one month which is in the same ballpark as many legitimate MMOs (that aren't WOW obviously).

[Tmon]

The fact that the statutory damages are much, much higher than this ramshackle operation could ever pay is irrelevant. They're set like that because WoW is such a huge moneymaker, and they don't want to give the possibility later down the line of some more well funded group saying "Three million dollars? Lets do this!"

Blizzard doesn't set the statutory damage amount, that is the penalty amount set by law.

[Ingmar]

FWIW $200 per 'work' is actually way down at the low end of the range for statutory damages for copyright infringement.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000504----000-.html

[Dark_MadMax]

One one side this was commercial server. - Make no mistake about it , some private wow servers make surprising amount of money. I dont remember all the details but there was scandal in emu community about some private server shard where some .. bitc.. ahem .. unscrupulous women... owned a shard and it was disclosed she made something in the tune of millions  of dollars ( scandal was about the part that she didnt pay developers/support staff who actually ran it)

But on the other hand  I always considered private wow servers a possbile holy grail of indy mmo gaming. WoW client is top notch and on servers side they achieved quality and stability on par with what blizzard provides ( I even played on  one for a while , but didnt want level/gear grind ).  Having solid client server for mmo is half the job.

[Dark_MadMax]

Also now that I am thinking about legal implications, I am kinda puzzled how they were found liable for what their clients did . Because technically servers contain no single piece of code or copyrighted material from blizzard (aside maybe the artwork for their website)

The clients on the other hand  were the ones violating the EULA/whatever. Now assume someone makes a client which would work on emu servers, that client would not use single art piece  from WoW , it could we be very crude (heck it could be ascii based 2 text client! ) but you would advertise your server specifically made for it , and ability to play with original wow client would be just a feature you would in no way approve  :)

Btw they do make some crazy stuff with wow client, check out wow dota:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJIjZwsdkxo

[Rasix]

Go away.

[tmp]

What kind of statutory damages get up to 88 million? No wonder all US cases have crazy settlements.

In a thread elsewhere that was chalked up mostly to the sued guy/gal not bothering to show up in court. Supposedly that results in some very heavy-handed ruling to discourage this sort of behaviour.

[Goreschach]

The fact that the statutory damages are much, much higher than this ramshackle operation could ever pay is irrelevant. They're set like that because WoW is such a huge moneymaker, and they don't want to give the possibility later down the line of some more well funded group saying "Three million dollars? Lets do this!"

Blizzard doesn't set the statutory damage amount, that is the penalty amount set by law.

No shit, captain obvious.

I shouldn't really have to explain this, but the law kindof has a vested interest in preventing people from breaking the law.

[Tmon]

The fact that the statutory damages are much, much higher than this ramshackle operation could ever pay is irrelevant. They're set like that because WoW is such a huge moneymaker, and they don't want to give the possibility later down the line of some more well funded group saying "Three million dollars? Lets do this!"

Blizzard doesn't set the statutory damage amount, that is the penalty amount set by law.

No shit, captain obvious.

I shouldn't really have to explain this, but the law kindof has a vested interest in preventing people from breaking the law.

The sentence,

They're set like that because WoW is such a huge moneymaker, and they don't want to give the possibility later down the line of some more well funded group saying "Three million dollars? Lets do this!"

,made your statement read like you believed that the damages were high because WoW was involved.   Sorry I misunderstood your oh so obvious point that the fact that wow was involved had no bearing on the amount of punitive damages assessed.

[NiX]

Calm down.

[Stabs]

I don't really see why there are so many people uncomfortable with the $88m damages.

It was theft. Most forms of theft involve long jail sentences when you get caught. Steal $3m in any other way than online and the repercussions are going to be far more severe than losing your credit cards.

[tazelbain]

I don't think you should read anything into the damages.  Defendant didn't show.  The judge basically just gave Blizzard whatever they wanted minus the patently ridiculous stuff.

[jakonovski]

I think it's ridiculous by definition really. 88 million never changed hands and nobody will ever pay 88 million damages. So what's the point of the verdict?

[Merusk]

The same point as multiple consecutive life sentences on murderers.   If things are resolved/ reduced through the appeals process it'll still hurt.

[jakonovski]

The same point as multiple consecutive life sentences on murderers.   If things are resolved/ reduced through the appeals process it'll still hurt.

Makes sense, but what a terrible reason. Aren't damages supposed to be based on actual harm done, and not as some arcane vehicle for punishment?

[Lantyssa]

This is a civil case, not a criminal one.  The rules are a bit different.

[Surlyboi]

I don't really see why there are so many people uncomfortable with the $88m damages.

It was theft. Most forms of theft involve long jail sentences when you get caught. Steal $3m in any other way than online and the repercussions are going to be far more severe than losing your credit cards.

Depends on how you steal that $3m.

[Numtini]

I think it's ridiculous by definition really. 88 million never changed hands and nobody will ever pay 88 million damages. So what's the point of the verdict?

To scare other people into not doing the same thing. That's what statutory damages are for. Not everyone who is wronged will actually sue, fewer will win. Statutory damages are there to assure that paying real damages doesn't just become a "cost of doing business."

[Stabs]

$88m is not unreasonable.

These clowns created a copy of WoW offering a rival cheaper service. The regular version of WoW makes far more than $88m per year so $88m could be viewed as cheap for running your own commercial WoW service.

The damages were assessed at $200 per player. When I played WoW I bought the box, 2 expansions and subbed for 4 years. Approximately 3*$50 for boxes plus 4 years - 3 free months = 45 *$15 worth of subs. In other words I paid about $825 to play WoW. Paying $200 for each player who played the ripoff instead of the legit version is cheap.

WoW depends upon it's reputation for sales, player retention, and attracting new customers via positive word of mouth. By running a game less well than Blizzard, by giving these "WoW players" less satisfaction Blizzard may lose future sales of all of its products. If people left this freeshard thinking WoW is crap because the customer service never picks up the phone that adversely affects Blizzard's reputation.

Finally the game was basically run as a scam. It sold epics under the guise of allowing players to make donations. These were not really donations at all but cash shop purchases. Selling epics to rich players is always something Blizzard has resisted because it makes for a crap game experience for 95% of the players. That crap game experience may be what players on this freeshard leave thinking WoW is about. Especially since it may not have been obvious to players who weren't interested in the cash shop that they would get schooled unless they "donated".