Blizzard Squeezes $88 Million From Private Server Owner

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Noobstick

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Mar 28, 2010
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Zachary Amaranth said:
DamienHell said:
Further proof that copy write laws are broken.
While the amount may be disproportionate and the DMCA is needlessly restrictive, this seems to be exactly the way copyright should work. It's a case in which someone is actually using your product to make money. This isn't some big company bullying a questionable case of fair use, or even a case of restricting technology. What Scapegaming did should fall under the basic concepts of copyright.
I'm seconding this. Getting hit by an $88 million bill sucks (and is excessive, mostly in the sense that she's never going to pay it off and Blizz knows this), but this lady brought it upon herself.
Reverse engineering the server code to host your own private servers, with all the copyright violations this entails, is already somewhat dodgy and perfectly worthy of a C&D, but charging people for items on top of it all is shamelessly greedy and very probably the reason she got singled out of the metric ton of private servers floating around. I have absolutely no sympathy for that leech, and would only wish her sentence scaled back to something reasonable so she can get a job and pay it back instead of filing for bankrupcy and mooching off state handouts.
 

Tamawam

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Aug 16, 2010
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Alright guys take it from me, I was a GM there up till the server shut down.

This woman had no idea what she was doing, she was slow, never logged in, has actually given money to the higher management sometimes for "special needs", hired a Dev but then fired the Dev cuz it was costing her too much money, gave all of us volunteer workers shiz way too much.

Yeah, the server was a disaster, was slightly fun 2 years ago, but she deserves what she got after instead of fixing up the place, she would take all the money in to herself, probably about 35k and more a month... We didn't know what was going on until the server started to fall apart from people spamming and DDoSing us :S

Mmk I also have played retail before, so I have supported Blizzard, but my time with WoW is over <3

~Tamalam
 

Celtic_Kerr

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solidstatemind said:
ciortas1 said:
My point being, it's Kotick who has to please Vivendi's shareholders now, not Mike Morhaime or whoever it was at Blizzard.
While this is technically correct, it's pretty clear in the language of the SEC filing that Blizzard Entertainment is a self-guided entity. Kotick can't exert direct authority over them; he would have to couch any direct interference within terms of a 'shareholders-best-interests' justification, and he isn't going to do that unless Blizzard stops making money hand-over-fist due to bad management, else he'd likely lose the battle that would inevitably occur. That's the way a holding company works. The only thing that Kotick gets out of Blizzard is the buff (heh) on the joint financial statements.

Don't believe me? Go look at any Starcraft II media. Trailers, box, the game itself... you won't find the name 'Activision' anywhere on it. You think if Kotick had any say whatsoever, he would pass up the opportunity of attaching his company's name to that gravy train?

Yeah, Kotick is a slime-bag, but I really wish people would stop propogating the false information that he has any influence on Blizzard whatsoever.

OT:
I think what people are missing in all of this is that I highly doubt Blizzard expects to collect any of the statutory damages. Instead, the important part is the statement it makes: don't fuck with Blizzard's properties and try to make money off of them illegally, else you will be financially ruined. I don't see how that's a problem. I'd do the same exact thing if I were the CEO at Blizzard.

To me the bottom line is this: this chick has been doing this for YEARS. (And is pretty fucked in the head to boot. See this vid [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vO93HDoYGU] detailing various drahhhhma around Scapegaming.) She made a lot of money off of it. At some point, kharma or fate or whatever was going to kick her in the ass. That's just the way the world works. After all, if crime really did pay, they're would be a lot more criminals, no? But the reality is, you commit crimes, you end up in jail, or sued out of house and home. You reap what you sow.

So y'all bitching about big, bad, evil, money-grubbing Blizzard... well, I feel bad for you. I'm sorry the Real World has to be all rational and logical and shit.
In addition, to this (beautifully written and tres accurate) Does anyone know how the legal system works? How FEW cases go to court compared to the number of lawsuits? Papers and passed on for months. ususally you need to send out a cease and decist letter before the litigation process. Even if yopu DO make it to court, the judge will pull you both aside into a back room and say "you understand what you're doing? You can opt out right now if you want, but the moment this starts, it doens't end." That woman fought Blizzard all the way when she could have probably payed a few ten thousand dollars in forfeits and fucked off in life.

But no, she tried to fight Blizzard, she attempted to win and the judge banged his gavel down with the fine he believed appropriate. She. Fucked. up
 

maxben

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FaceFaceFace said:
I don't really think it's that unfair. It's like how they used to cut off your hand for robbery. It's not about proportionate punishment, it's stopping anyone else from even thinking about committing the crime.
But we agree that cutting off someone's hand for robbery is unfair punishment, correct?
 

Bagsworth

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Aug 16, 2010
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maxben said:
FaceFaceFace said:
I don't really think it's that unfair. It's like how they used to cut off your hand for robbery. It's not about proportionate punishment, it's stopping anyone else from even thinking about committing the crime.
But we agree that cutting off someone's hand for robbery is unfair punishment, correct?
Cutting off someone's hand for robbery is unfair punishment, assuming that what the robber stole wasn't somebody else's hand.
 

maxben

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Bagsworth said:
maxben said:
FaceFaceFace said:
I don't really think it's that unfair. It's like how they used to cut off your hand for robbery. It's not about proportionate punishment, it's stopping anyone else from even thinking about committing the crime.
But we agree that cutting off someone's hand for robbery is unfair punishment, correct?
Cutting off someone's hand for robbery is unfair punishment, assuming that what the robber stole wasn't somebody else's hand.
Exactly, so I put forward that Alyson did not steal 80,000,000 worth of property from Blizzard.
What FaceFaceFace was saying is that this is OK because its to make an example of her, much like cutting a hand of for robbery regardless of its fairness makes an example to other robbers.
 

SnipErlite

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Kurokami said:
Like others have said, they're sending a message. Personally I'd rather end up in jail for three years instead of having that debt but they did have the right to do that.

I hope she made some money off the players on her server.
This is true, although it was still kind of unnecessary. They could have shut this down and sent a, albeit not so vicious, message without having to be such massive dicks.

MattRooney06 said:
i guess this was the setting an example lawsuit, i recon this will be the case they point out to others when they threten to press charges
Oh almost certainly, and I'm sure this will dissuade others from trying it. But still, they didn't have to. It's not like they need the money.

lacktheknack said:
I guarantee they warned her... not that they need to. What she was doing was ILLEGAL.

I mean, really, what did she expect was going to happen?
I don't recall reading anything about them sending her a warning before the sue and massive money-take, but perhaps. It's just such an over-the-top amount...they could have stopped this without taking a whole 88 million :|

Assassin Xaero said:
I'm sure they've probably warned them numerous times and the people just said "yeah right, whatever".
*shrug* perhaps, and they were within their rights to do as they did. It's just an unnecessarily large sum of money....
 

Frankster

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Mar 13, 2009
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Blizzard loses a lot of respect on my side, even if they are in the right.

By crushing someone so totally, not only are they likely going to make a hardened and desperate criminal (with 80+million debt, is there any way out beyond a life of crime and taking advantage of state benefits?).

What really irks me is that the debt will be passed to her kids or parents.
Now, i'm all for controlling who gets to have kids (not as harsh as it sounds: im just a firm believer that if you're gonna have kids you better be damn sure you'd be a decent parent rather then getting a kid for your own sake) but passing that sentence onto the fammily... It's not just punishing the guilty but the family of the guilty and that is just wrong. Imagine YOU get a share of this sentence because of some retarded family member, would any of you still feel it was a just decision?
 

RollForInitiative

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Mar 10, 2009
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Interesting. While the amount of money is positively staggering and wholly unrealistic, Blizzard has decided to send a very straight and clear message. "Do not fuck with us" would be an understatement at this point.

I can't help but approve, if only because they've decided to set such a staunch precedent.
 

Tamawam

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Aug 16, 2010
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To be honest, if they sue her, they have to sue all the other private servers.. I want someone to name one server out there that doesn't have a donations system in their hands.
 

solidstatemind

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Nov 9, 2008
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ciortas1 said:
solidstatemind said:
What this began as was me saying that Kotick, in the chain of command, is above anyone at Blizzard, nothing more, nothing less. If anything, I'm quite convinced as of late that Blizzard is quite capable of fucking up and being greedy on their own.

Also, I'm not really sympathetic of the ***** that was doing this whole thing, especially since she didn't even show up to court and (presumably) ignored the cease and desist letters. What I'm against here is laws being used to "set an example", because it's just not the way justice is supposed to work. She did this damage, make her pay for this damage and a little bit extra to feel some pain. Not 30 times the damage. The fact that Blizzard is among those companies now that choose to abuse the flawed law and the uninformed judges or juries is why I'm losing the last drop of respect for them.
I'm really not trying to be harsh here, but you understand that a fundamental concept of the American justice system is 'legal precedent'? Her being 'made an example' of is exactly what Blizzard was striving for, because it sets a legal precedent about them defending their intellectual property: in any future suits they choose to bring, they can point at this decision and say "look, we already fought this out in the courts, and we won. Do we really have to do this again?" And most defense attorneys are going to say 'Uhhh, no. How can we settle this out of court?' And then Blizzard, the defendent, and even the state judicial system save a lot of time and probably a decent amount of money rather than having to go through the whole mess again.

Plus, it also means that, in the future, maybe the profiteers who are exploiting Blizzard's work for their own gain will actually heed the Cease and Desist letters, rather than either burying their head in the sand (like this chick seems to have done), or thinking that they might be able to beat a "soulless corporation" in a court of law, only to realize that real life isn't like an episode of Law and Order.

And before you despair in our legal system and our juries, you really should investigate it a bit more thoroughly. Don't go by what you see on TV, either on the 'docudramas' or shows like L&O; go watch a trial yourself, or take a class at school about constitutional law, jurisprudence, or whatnot. It's actually very interesting, and you'll find that there is a lot more going on under the hood than you realize-- and quite possibly you'll find out the system works far better than we have any right to expect it to.
 

Bagsworth

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Aug 16, 2010
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maxben said:
Whether it works or not, setting an example of a wrongdoer is often standard practice, in that the abject suffering of the individual tends to deter others from tempting the same fate. And as the poster above me reminds me, sets a legal precedent from which to conduct future suits.

In this case, however, I don't have a particularly strong opinion on the $80m damages. As I stated earlier, the damages were awarded as a default judgment due to the defendant not responding to court summons (which would be contempt-of-court if this weren't a civil case). If the defendant had cared enough to appear in court to contest the charges, Blizzard may not have been awarded the magic number they made up when they filed the suit.

Furthermore, the defendant's life has hardly been destroyed or whichever synonym you'd choose to describe it. The defendant can appeal the decision, which in all likelihood will get the damages reduced significantly (assuming her truancy isn't held against her). Failing that, she can declare bankruptcy. People on here have been quick to point out that bankruptcy is not an appealing option, but that's the point - it's not intended to be a picnic. She flagrantly committed intellectual property theft to turn a commercial profit. A decade or so of being unable to take out loans or a line of credit is a far better prospect than a lifetime of crippling debt.
 

Assassin Xaero

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SnipErlite said:
Assassin Xaero said:
I'm sure they've probably warned them numerous times and the people just said "yeah right, whatever".
*shrug* perhaps, and they were within their rights to do as they did. It's just an unnecessarily large sum of money....
Maybe it's just like when they sentence people to 300+ years in jail. There is no way they are going to live that long, but it is worse than just 100 years...
 

Erana

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Celtic_Kerr said:
Erana said:
But they've ruined this person's entire life.
A lotta people involved in Enron didn't get it this harsh.
I don't know, I find it hard to sympathize. They knowingly performed illegal activities... They took the risk, they lost.

You steral from a bank, you get tossed in jail, you can't make money until you're let out and then you possibly can't find a job... Your life is ruined. Same thing
I think my, "A lotta people involved in Enron didn't get it this harsh" still stands.
And Jail isn't supposed to be about punishment, its supposed to be about reform.
 

solidstatemind

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Nov 9, 2008
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ciortas1 said:
solidstatemind said:
Sorry, can't be bothered. I know for a fact that punishments concerning copyright are way, and I mean way out of proportion with the crimes committed. It just goes against any common sense.

I have no interest in wasting hours just to understand where it is that the justice system falls apart, when the fact is, it's fucked up. On many levels.
Well then, while I'm sorry you can't be bothered, but you realize that as a result, your opinion of our justice system has almost no weight, right? You don't have knowledge of what is really going on, so you can't say for sure that it is wrong or not.

So, no, it's not a 'fact' that it's fucked up on many levels, it's merely a fact that you think it's fucked up, and have formed that opinion with little actual in-depth knowledge on your part. I can understand not being terribly interested since you're Lithuanian, but at the same time, you lose your ability to stand in judgment.

This isn't a simple subject, after all. Seriously, that's like me saying "Unified Theory is bullshit" because I saw a show on Discovery once.
 

DominicxD

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Dec 28, 2009
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Woah

They're perfectly entitled to sue the person but that is just fucking insane. I mean, the person shouldn't have done it in the first place, but tbh this just makes Blizzard look like even bigger cunts in my eyes.

I used to love those guys. =(
 

solidstatemind

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Nov 9, 2008
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Frankster said:
Blizzard loses a lot of respect on my side, even if they are in the right.

By crushing someone so totally, not only are they likely going to make a hardened and desperate criminal (with 80+million debt, is there any way out beyond a life of crime and taking advantage of state benefits?).

What really irks me is that the debt will be passed to her kids or parents.
Now, i'm all for controlling who gets to have kids (not as harsh as it sounds: im just a firm believer that if you're gonna have kids you better be damn sure you'd be a decent parent rather then getting a kid for your own sake) but passing that sentence onto the fammily... It's not just punishing the guilty but the family of the guilty and that is just wrong. Imagine YOU get a share of this sentence because of some retarded family member, would any of you still feel it was a just decision?
First, like I said earlier, the Blizzard people are pretty smart, and I doubt that they really think one woman is going to cough up $88 million dollars. And frankly, it's just silly to think they would.

Second, in re: death-- well, you're right, that would be a horrible scenario... except that it doesn't work that way, at least in America, and I'm pretty sure that Blizzard has to abide by the laws in effect in the jurisdiction where they have their headquarters. So when she dies, her estate is responsible for paying off any debts. If there isn't enough money, the creditors are shit out of luck usually, unless they can find someone else they can legally associate with the original debt. So unless she was employing her children to help her in her private server, they aren't going to be carrying any additional financial burden.

Now, stipulated, it may be different in England (of which she is a citizen? Yes? No?), but again, I think that Blizzard would legally have to treat this like she was living here. Hm. I think I'll ask my sister the lawyer.