Blizzard Squeezes $88 Million From Private Server Owner

[dochmbi]

Why even bother with a number at all, it might as well be "you are hereby sentenced to give all your money to activision-blizzard, and are allowed only to keep enough for housing and food".

I wonder if there is still some incentive left to work at all.

 

[Optimystic]

I don't think it's quite fair that she got cornholed like that over a video game. Besides, won't the other private servers just think "let's keep a low profile and no micro-transactions"?

Though on the other hand, they may "only" be looking at a few million for that transgression... so the suit might be doing its job.

 

[Comieman]

And people complain that repair armor bills are high in WoW

This bill will take her a LOOOOOOOOONG time to take care of.

 

[dochmbi]

In case anyone is interested, here's some theoretical background on punishment: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/punishment/

 

[thiosk]

This is when you fake your own death and flee to somewhere without extradition treaties.

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

For starters, I can understand Blizzard getting miffed about people making money off their product. I wouldn't like it very much either. In this case, although I can't be arsed to check, it seemed a C+D notice was served and ignored.

Fine. Warning shot ignored? Fire up the big guns.

What Blizzard have done though is thought: "No. Let's not be girly about this. Break out the tactical nuclear ICBMs!"

Nigh on $90million is beyond insane. There are bigwigs in the oil industry who don't make that kinda cash so to expect one woman with a server to come up with that kind of money is ridiculous! Speaking as someone on debt management, I know for a fact that most creditors prefer to get SOME of their cash back rather than NONE, which is what they'd get if the debtor declared bankruptcy, which is what Reeves is gonna wind up having to do. There is no management plan in the world that will handle that kind of debt so bankruptcy or jail is the only way for Reeves to go.

Personally I couldn't give a flying fuck about WoW or Blizzard but I know that WoW does have a lot of dedicated players and, as a result, Blizzard have more money than God. By all means, come down on someone ripping you off but there has to be an element of proportion involved, surely?

By awarding such a massive figure, I reckon that the judge has buggered Blizzard on this one because, if things go the way people here are predicting, Reeves wont be able to pay and Blizzard will get nothing rather than something.

Wardy

I wonder if that was the judge's intention here to give such an incedulous number that Blizzard won't be able to collect, while leaving a very clear black mark in this woman's history as a warning to her - or anyone else - that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated.

If that is the case, there's much better ways to go about it, I think, but that is on the judge, not Blizzard.

 

[Kurokami]

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.

You should take into account that the money wasn't decided by Blizzard, they simply chose to take action again her, the rest was decided by the court.

Also the letter wouldn't have sent the same message and to be frank, this isn't at all different from pirating. Except its like pirating ALOT from one company. Now I don't take a huge stand against pirating as I don't consider any of the people I know to do it to be in any way immoral, but at the same time they should know what's coming if they get caught. Like I said before, the money seems far too excessive because, well because this essentially ruined her life I assume (Or rather, what her life was) but at the same time, its not like it came out of no where.

 

[Gindil]

I hope she made some money off the players on her server.

thats the exact reason why it is so high. Not only was it ILLEGAL she also had micro-transactions in place to make money off it. It is probably also why it was HER they went after and not someone else.

No it's not. She didn't show up. A default judgement means that they didn't appear in court. Same thing runs if you don't appear in a court hearing on child support. Without your side of the story, the law usually gives EVERYTHING to the person that appeared (usually the woman)

 

[Lalithor]

For those wondering where the $ values came from, an article on gamasutra had a few additonal details:

"The judge's order said Blizzard "submitted satisfactory evidence from third-party PayPal Inc. showing that Defendant?s PayPal account received $3,052,339 in gross revenues."

The order also said that Blizzard submitted satisfactory evidence that showed Reeves' website (Scapegaming.com, currently down) hosted 32,000 users on a given day in June 2008. That same month, there were over 427,000 members of the Scapegaming community, and Reeves, who goes by a number of aliases including "Peyton," said that 40,000 people play on Scapegaming's servers every day.

The court took the size of the community, 427,000, and multiplied that figure by $200 "per act of circumvention" of a copyright security system, and came to the statutory damages amount of over $85 million. It's unclear if Reeves, who didn't respond to the suit, would be able to pay the award to fulfillment, or if the defendant would appeal the ruling."

 

[DamienHell]

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.

No see I agree that he should be sued and charged for damages. But you will never convince me that he dealt $88 MILLION in damages. And that's why copyright laws are ridiculous. Download a couple albums, $20 million. 3 movies? $5 million. Copyright suits have ALWAYS charged ridiculous amounts. Now obviously its going to be knocked down to around $10,000 but they shouldn't be able to sue for that much to begin with.

 

[godofallu]

Reminds me of all those people that got slapped insane fines for pirating stuff.

I understand getting your lost money back, and then some more in order to teach a lesson and punish a person. But to straight up take everything that person has, and ever will have is crazy. Might as well have just shot them in the head.

Personally the fact that you have to buy the game, and pay for a monthly subscription fee is crazy enough. Private servers exist because there is a large market share that doesn't get their needs met by Blizzards current business model.

 

[Abengoshis]

This is disgusting. Ruining someone's life over this is completely unnecessary.

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, well, given what's at stake I can see why this played out this way. The person responsible has their life pretty much ruined forever in a way worse than jail time would ever have achieved. Given the potential money to be made off of running private servers based on their IP in this case, anything short of this kind of thing is going to have people willing to take the risk for the potential payoffs.

That said, with the example made I do hope they back off after a while. Mercy is a virtue, and as far as crimes go this one is relatively minor overall.

 

[Lalithor]

The reason she is getting charged $88 million dollars is because she was letting 427,000 people play WoW for free. I'm not sure how long the servers were up, but I think this lawsuit started sometime in 2009. That $88 million approximately works out to 1 year's subscription per player at the month-to-month rate of 15$. 15$/month * 12 months * 427,000 = 76.8 Million.

Unlike the RIAA who are asking for $1000 per song found on $10 CD's, I was pleasantly surprised that the damages were very reasonably close to the revenue Blizzard probably lost in this case. It's not Blizzards fault she was hosting servers for 427,000 people.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

*needlessly dramatic narrator voice* And so the Scapegaming raid group got wiped due to the level ?? boss Blizzard Entertainment Co. causing a 50 million crit Whirlwind to everyone.

 

[Rhiehn]

The reason she is getting charged $88 million dollars is because she was letting 427,000 people play WoW for free. I'm not sure how long the servers were up, but I think this lawsuit started sometime in 2009. That $88 million approximately works out to 1 year's subscription per player at the month-to-month rate of 15$. 15$/month * 12 months * 427,000 = 76.8 Million.

Unlike the RIAA who are asking for $1000 per song found on $10 CD's, I was pleasantly surprised that the damages were very reasonably close to the revenue Blizzard probably lost in this case. It's not Blizzards fault she was hosting servers for 427,000 people.

This pretty much voids all "I hate blizzard" statements thus far, provided this is true.
edit: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/blizzard-wins-88-million-suit-against-world-of-warcraft-private-server-owner/ This lawsuit is totally reasonable, Blizzard has no reason to be called greedy for this particular incident.

 

[poiuppx]

I fully stand behind Blizzard on this one (guess according to that Vaviel or whatshisface earlier in the thread that means I have a pitch black soul of nasty evil). Someone hosts a private server, fine. It's illegal and wrong, but a lot of companies just shrug at it since it's more work to kill one than to let it die its own natural death in due course. Someone is not only hosting a private server, but has close to a half-million users grand total, bilks them for over 3 mil, and brags about how she used the money for personal reasons rather than for server stuff. This is a multiple-time-whammy.

Consider; that's not just theft in terms of offering the service for free. That's outrightly tainting the pool. Those people will think of this experience of paying extra to someone who wasn't even using it for the game, and will equate it mentally with the game. Potentially, those gamers are lost customers because of her. I'd be damn pissed too.

You say it's overkill? I say it's not only neccesary, it's vital. Not just to send a message to other private server hosters, but to send one that clearly says 'If you profit off us and give our product a bad name, we will SMITE you'.

The irony? They probably never expected a final settlement to come to those numbers. But her failure to show up and contest it more or less cinched those numbers in. Hell, that probably even surprised Blizzard's own lawyers; who would expect someone NOT to show up to fight something like that? But no. As she did before, she shrugged it all off. And this time, she has to pay the penalty due her.

Those of you saying she was wronged by this number, please pause and consider: she broke the law, misused funds, potentially tainted a massive number of users against the product, and then didn't even bother to defend herself when called on all this. If it were your company, your product, your time and energy- hell, not just yours, but that of all those around you who helped make this happen -being twisted for the sake of this woman, can you honestly in your heart of hearts say you'd do any less?

 

[SimuLord]

I'm impressed. Very pleasantly impressed. Unlike other forms of piracy, private servers in MMOs DO cost the company real, quantifiable losses in sales and subscriptions.

Not usually the type to side with Kotick's attack dogs, but this is completely indefensible. Sic 'em, Blizzard!

 

[TheKagestar]

***** got critted. Hard.