88 million for default judgement in Blizzard case

[Jagos]

Linkage (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102805-Blizzard-Squeezes-88-Million-From-Private-Server-Owner)

Go ahead and discuss.

I'll be damned if statutory damages isn't messed up. Basically Congress has said the bare minimum for copyright infringement is $200 per case. How they calculated the damage was that the server had 490K+ people. So they charged $200...

For each person on the server.

I may not like the woman (she used the donations irresponsibly) but damned if this isn't just a smidge harsh.

[Loyal]

As the article mentions, this is just Blizzard making an example. They almost certainly have no intent on trying to enforce the full payment, instead "settling" for "x amount of dollars paid per month for pretty much the rest of your life." If they decide it's financially sound to bother enforcing it at all.

But yeah, Blizzard is... pretty unambiguous about that sort of thing.

[bluestarultor]

I hate to say it, but if you have an illegal server with nearly 500,000 people on it, well, you're servicing a LOT of people and the fine is going to be big no matter what you do.

I don't really sympathize in this case. I don't care what she did with the money she got from donations or items or whatever. That's none of my business. I'm also sure there are probably a lot of these and no good way of finding or counting them, so she probably felt safe. But she was basically illegally reselling a commercial product to more people than can be explained by simple word of mouth through friends or something and I simply can't condone setting up a business like that. I guess I'd be more generous if there was under a thousand because that's like, what, "Hey, you guys, I'm setting up a private server just for us!" and then someone saying "Hey, mind if I invite Barry from work?" and just kind of snowballing from there. Anything more than 10k is delving into handing out fliers at the mall and 100k is where I'm guessing there's going to be some actual advertising involved.

I mean, yeah, it's a LOT of money, but then she was collecting money from a LOT of people. I don't much like the media giants making examples of people just because of how ridiculous the terms are in doing that, but really, there's no kind way of handling that kind of scale. Even if they were REALLLLY nice and only charged a dollar per account, that's still enough to buy a really nice house. If it were music instead of WoW accounts, averaging 3 minutes a song, that would be enough music to listen to for nearly 3 years straight without stopping.

[Krylo]

I do have to wonder, though, if Blizzard would have been so harsh if she hadn't been attempting to make a profit off of it?

I'm pretty sure I've read that Blizzard really doesn't like private servers, however I know of some private servers which received nothing beyond cease and desists and/or threats with no actual legal firepower behind it.

The fact that this woman had nearly 500k subscribers AND was making money off of Blizzard's work is probably what elicited the harsh treatment/selecting her as the one to be made an example of.

[Flarecobra]

Question: Where does it say the number of subscribers? I'm not seeing this anywhere... Or did I miss it?

And in a semi-related story, Blizzard's suing a WoW bot maker. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/82754-Blizzard-Sues-World-of-Warcraft-Bot-Maker)

Man, they're really going Gestapo on people, huh?

[Krylo]

Question: Where does it say the number of subscribers? I'm not seeing this anywhere... Or did I miss it?Not in that story. This one (http://www.geek.com/articles/games/blizzard-wins-88-million-from-scapegaming-over-illegal-wow-servers-20100817/) lists it at 427,000.

And in a semi-related story, Blizzard's suing a WoW bot maker. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/82754-Blizzard-Sues-World-of-Warcraft-Bot-Maker)

Man, they're really going Gestapo on people, huh?Really really hope they win that one.

I don't play WoW, but I play other MMOs, have played other MMOs, have played WoW, MUDs, etc. and one thing they all have in common is that botters fuck up the game for everyone else by doing exactly what Blizzard is complaining about in the lawsuit.

Them winning would set a legal precedent and make people who make those programs a target in the future.

[POS Industries]

And in a semi-related story, Blizzard's suing a WoW bot maker. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/82754-Blizzard-Sues-World-of-Warcraft-Bot-Maker)

Man, they're really going Gestapo on people, huh?
It's not really "Gestapo" if it's against someone who made two and a half million bucks hacking your software without your permission.

[Malek]

Blizzard did win in the botting case. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/86562-Blizzard-Clobbers-Glider-Bot-Maker-In-Court

[Jagos]

Not in that story. This one (http://www.geek.com/articles/games/blizzard-wins-88-million-from-scapegaming-over-illegal-wow-servers-20100817/) lists it at 427,000.

Really really hope they win that one.

I don't play WoW, but I play other MMOs, have played other MMOs, have played WoW, MUDs, etc. and one thing they all have in common is that botters fuck up the game for everyone else by doing exactly what Blizzard is complaining about in the lawsuit.

Them winning would set a legal precedent and make people who make those programs a target in the future.

Some games you need it though.

EVE Online comes to mind.

They won though (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/86562-Blizzard-Clobbers-Glider-Bot-Maker-In-Court)

[krogothwolf]

Some games you need it though.

EVE Online comes to mind.


Yes but everything I've heard about EVE online is the whole point of the game is to fuck over other players.

A game like WoW is when botters fuck up the whole thing and it ruins the experience.

[bluestarultor]

Yes but everything I've heard about EVE online is the whole point of the game is to not play the game.

FTFY.

[Nikose Tyris]

I don't play a game, but I read about it online and that qualifies me to make funny jokes about how it's horrible, hurr hurr

FTFY.

[bluestarultor]

FTFY.

However did you guess? :3:


In all seriousness, people get way too serious about EVE. When a Russian guy dumps the GDP of several African nations into buying ships for his corporation, someone actually finds a guy in real life a cuts his phone line, or a person spends years working his way to the top of a rival corporation as a spy and then sells it to its biggest competitor and people fear for the future of the in-game market, which is intertwined both incoming and outgoing with real-world money no less, you have...

I have no idea what you have, but it's something people take way too seriously.

[Yrcrazypa]

The guy who spent years working his way to the top of a rival corporation though is probably the single greatest thing I've ever heard of in a game. Seriously, that takes dedication, and is pretty hilarious too.

[Jagos]

Wait... What?

[EVILNess]

I don't get why everyone rips on EVE so much, it simply uses a real world model for consequences (minus the whole immortal Clone Baby thing), unlike say WoW where you simply pay a few gold for your repair and walk back to a corpse.

I'm so sorry that EVE severely punishes bad decisions and rewards making connections and finding people you can trust.

As for all of these "unbelievable" stories that people hear, shit like this happens all the time in the real world. A pirate attack is like a random mugging, you don't go through certain systems at certain times, just like you don't go through certain parts of town at certain hours of the day. White collar crime can happen everywhere as well. Real world or a MMO.

[bluestarultor]

I don't get why everyone rips on EVE so much, it simply uses a real world model for consequences (minus the whole immortal Clone Baby thing), unlike say WoW where you simply pay a few gold for your repair and walk back to a corpse.

I'm so sorry that EVE severely punishes bad decisions and rewards making connections and finding people you can trust.

As for all of these "unbelievable" stories that people hear, shit like this happens all the time in the real world. A pirate attack is like a random mugging, you don't go through certain systems at certain times, just like you don't go through certain parts of town at certain hours of the day. White collar crime can happen everywhere as well. Real world or a MMO.

That's particularly the issue I have with it. You don't pay $11-15 a month to live real life. I know EVE players. I simply don't see the allure of spending money to live in a world where the only differences are a balance between different classes of space ships (which is a fantastic system, mind you) and the fact that learning a skill doesn't actually teach you something you could get a meatspace job with, despite an insane variety of them that makes most colleges shrivel in impotence.

That's pretty much why I think the whole setup's crazy. EVE is like a backwards MMORPG. It's an MMOG that apes everything about real life for better or worse. I personally barely have time for ONE real life, much less an MMOG of any sort. EVE is a simulator and it mostly simulates something that people playing online games are generally trying to get away from.

When aliens finally find us, EVE is either going to be the thing that pushes them to destroy us all or the thing that saves humanity from destruction. Or maybe it'll break their brains and they'll all go stark raving mad and commit suicide.



Edit:

I mean, really, it's not my cup of tea, but it's not my place to judge others whose it is. You still can't go along acting like there's no reason for people to double take and go "ABUH?" when you have that kind of radically different setup. Applying real-world logic to a genre driven by moon logic is going to turn heads the same way as applying moon logic to the real world.

[Krylo]

I don't know much about Eve...

But that's only because I couldn't stand playing it for over fifteen minutes with the bassackwards interface when I downloaded the demo.

But I DO know that it has little to do with multimillion dollar lawsuits.

[bluestarultor]

I don't know much about Eve...

But that's only because I couldn't stand playing it for over fifteen minutes with the bassackwards interface when I downloaded the demo.

But I DO know that it has little to do with multimillion dollar lawsuits.

You'd be surprised. EVE is the only example where one might be both the head of a multimillion dollar international corporation and also work as a fry chef at McDonald's. :P

[Krylo]

I meant ones dealing with real dollars, not Eve dollars, whatever they are called with real world corporations, not intergalactive Eve corporations.

I am perfectly aware such things probably go on in the game world.

[PhoenixFlame]

Yes but everything I've heard about EVE online is the whole point of the game is to fuck over other players.

Isn't that the point of every MMO?

Ah, "Market PVP"

Edit: It is however, incredibly expedient to make a quick buck off of exploiting someone less competent. I was once fleet command for my high-sec corporation, who were all PVE whatsits and wanted to go pirating, but had no idea how to do it. After weeks of herding sheep to no avail, my CEO and I had a chat and I said that "If I were to pick a corporation to go to war with for easy money, it would be us."

He laughed.

Next week, I broke corp and went to war with them. Alone.

I made 1.5 billion ISK in two days.

[Amake]

The funny thing about Eve is that you don't need bots to automate the game for you. If you run a solo mining operation you have to press like one button once per five minutes or sometimes per hour. A lot of players in that position are apparently mistaken for robots. Flying around hunting down mobs doesn't have to be much more involved.

Now, I have a question: How is it physically possible for one person to spend anywhere near three million dollars on a game server? And how could anyone think that kind of business would go unnoticed?

Wait, the sources are divided here. I read somewhere that the woman had received three million in player donations and such, while others say Blizzard are "missing" that much in potential profits which is a pretty big fucking difference.

[Jagos]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.225965-Blizzard-Squeezes-88-Million-From-Private-Server-Owner?page=13#7727170

From someone from the server