Blizzard Squeezes $88 Million From Private Server Owner

[Agayek]

Blizzard worked very hard for several years to develop that product before it came out and have worked very hard to keep it running, and keep new content coming out. No one deserves make make money of of that product other than Blizzard and if your try then in my opinion you deserve to get royally ass fucked by the court. Do not steal other peoples hard work and make money off of it yourself. This is hardly an irrelevant issue. I do not know how much money she made but it could be in the millions or tens of millions depending on how many players she had on her server and how much they spent on micro-transactions. And no one has the right to make money off that product other than the people who created it.

Very true, but the amount of money Blizzard lost on a single server is nowhere near $85,000,000. I guarantee it. Yes, the owner should face charges, but slapping them with a $90 million debt is way past the punishment fitting the crime. What's happened is that the owner is now in massive debt, forever. And she hardly deprived Blizzard of any revenue. The vast majority of people who play on private servers don't want to pay for the game, that's why they're on private servers in the first place. If the server wasn't there, they wouldn't be playing the game at all (in general, this doesn't apply to all the players). Essentially, they put this woman in debt for the remainder of her life, and most likely the life of whoever inherits the debt, over a revenue loss less than if one of their accountants makes a rounding error.

I agree that she should be punished, hosting a private server is a direct violation of copyright law, but the level of punishment in no way fits the crime.

 

[DarkRyter]

Unfortunately not everyone can be

King of the Pirates!

Don't worry, she can pay it off he finds the One Piece.

 

[Twilight.falls]

The lady should have known what would happen from doing this. Don't try to make money off of some else's work.

However, 88 million is a bit much.


Reminds me of that one moment where that kid showed nude pictures of himself on XBLA and Microsoft banned him for 8000 years.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Blizzard is really a cheap wh...re !

 

[jpoon]

Blizzard are a bunch of greedy bastards. The private server was a bad idea but they are taking this so out of proportion it hurts my mind.

 

[Greyhald]

Seeking to shut the server down and protect their financial assets from others "stealing" money from their IP? Fine. Ruining someone's entire financial future and even life so that they may as well start living on the street or kill themselves now? Not fine, that's just a dick move, and sounds exactly like the sort of thing that stems from having someone with the mentality of Kotick as your CEO.

Undoubtably they expect her to go bankrupt, she has no other choice.

They know full well they aren't ruining her entire financial future. But they ARE sending a message to other people rinning private servers. To be the least bit effective that message must be loud and clear. This woman sat down and set up a private server knowing full well it was illegal. She then alterred the way the server was operated to make a profit from an illegal activity.

She knew full well EXACTLY what she was doing and EXACTLY how illegal it was. She probably got what she deserves: A one way ticket to Bankruptcyville and a hard way to go for a couple years.

She's lucky she didn't get a 6-12 month jail sentence on top of the money.

Very true, but the amount of money Blizzard lost on a single server is nowhere near $85,000,000.

1) blizzard didn't just lose server fees. They lose server fees + loss of sales on client softaware.

2) From Wikipedia (it seemed the simplest explanation on offer):

Statutory damages are pre-established damages for cases where calculating a correct sum is deemed difficult.

In intellectual property cases (relating to copyright or trademark, for instance), it is often difficult for plaintiffs to determine the exact volume of infringement. Thus, statutory damages are often calculated as a multiple of the price for the use of the infringed right.


It's got nothing to do with how much blizzard makes on a server. It's a multiple of what they charge 3rd parties to use the server software and IP plus a multiple of what it costs to buy the client software to play on that server.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

Fro all those dumb fanboys who swore up and down Blizzard was not like Activision, out to get every penny they could, how's that smell?

lol, do you really think Blizzard intends to get even a tenth of this? It's like when companies like Capcom ban people for a thousand years. It's intentionally over-the-top to drive down the point that this is wrong.

Running a private server is tantamount to piracy. They first hammered her with a C&D. She didn't listen, and was taking microtransactions (i.e. making not-inconsiderable change off of the product Blizzard built). So they dropped the hammer.

Perfectly justified.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

hmm, i don't think that they can afford that... (do they even have 1 million?)

 

[Zeetchmen]

Showing Bli$$ard are still arseholes even in the real world, like they need $88 million more dollars

 

[Outright Villainy]

...and a paltry $63,600 in attorney's fees. The attorney's fees seem paltry next to the $85 million in statutory damages, anyway.

This part is really bugging me. It sounds like one of them should have been removed. I'm no expert on grammar, but this sounds really bad.

It's emphesising that word since you can't emphesise a word purely using it once. I'm emphesising emphesis you see.

emphasize

it's
Emphasize!

Quiet you! [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/emphasise]
Not everyone is American you know.

Ot: Hoo boy, that'a lot of money. A little excessive sure, but she'll just claim bankruptcy, and that'll be her just desserts as far as I'm concerned.

Edit: Haha, he spelt it wrong anyway though, so disregard that. It just gets on my nerves when people say I'm wrong for spelling a lot of '-ize' words as '-ise'. 95% of the time it's just the way it's spelled when you're not in America damnit!

 

[viranimus]

Ive got to ask.. wouldnt this fall under cruel and unusual punishment?

I recently remember hearing about the girl who was sued by the recording industry for illegal downloads and similarly the judge wanted to "make an example of her" by assessing an amount that she will never be able to fully repay, in excess of a couple million dollars for something like 40 tracks illegally downloaded.

Wasn't that the point to put it into law? to keep judges and attorneys from levying an exorbitant punishment that the reason for punishing that hard is to dissuade others from doing the same? So it is also the defendants punishment to be a public service warning?

Seriously Blizzard... while I do accept that the defendant made a mistake by trying to profit from trademarked property, given that 80 million dollars isnt even pocket change to you, do you really think that their little operation actually deprived you of that much revenue? Is this anything BUT a dick move on the part of Blizzard and the judge handing down this sort of a verdict?

Im not advocating piracy, Just advocating something logical.

 

[manythings]

It's emphesising that word since you can't emphesise a word purely using it once. I'm emphesising emphesis you see.

emphasize

it's
Emphasize!

Dammit. Vowels have betrayed me again. Also -sise not -size.

 

[Mordwyl]

Did they really have to go THAT far? It sounds like a satirical capitalist melodrama, except it's actually true.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Do you know how long was she running this, how many players and how much money she made?

Depending on the amounts, this could be either be justified or overkill.

She made $3,052,339, disgorgement means you pay the cash you made illegally. She will just declare bankruptcy and walk away from the civil debt.

Oh...

So the total Blizzard lost from lack of monthly fees from the players shouldn't be much more then 10 million... but that still is a lot.

From what I understand though, it would pretty hard to argue the disgorgement fees to a bankruptcy judge, since you HAD the money illegally.

 

[Coranico]

they already have enough money to buy saturn and all of its moons why did they do it

while yes that's true (and a bit of an understatement), at the end of the day, they are trying to protect their property, and if Blizzard's way of doing that is making an example of one person, then all power to them.

Think about it this way... if someone kicks you in the groin, you should have the right to kick them back, twice as hard, and warn anyone watching to never kick you in the groin.

 

[Motiv_]

Precisely. I mean, the most they should've done is had her pay back the 3 million, and spend a year or two in prison. THAT, to me, would be fair. But 88 MILLION dollars? My expected income for life is a little under 2 million. And that's if I work my same hours for the next.. 25 years, and then start collecting social security.

This woman, unless she declares bankruptcy or pulls some very smart and sneaky court moves, is quite frankly fucked. Sure, she was committing a crime, and got her just desserts, but don't stuff the ***** until she explodes.

As if I had any respect for Kotick to begin with, I now have lost all of it.

Its a civil action, you cant sent to jail.

Then have her arrested and sent to a criminal trial, I'm sure there's some sort of legal jargon for what she did. It'd be like running your own table at a casino and not giving any of the money to said casino.

People've been arrested for lighter crimes, so I'm sure they could figure something out, especially with their team of about 20 or so lawyers.

 

[Tom Goldman]

...and a paltry $63,600 in attorney's fees. The attorney's fees seem paltry next to the $85 million in statutory damages, anyway.

This part is really bugging me. It sounds like one of them should have been removed. I'm no expert on grammar, but this sounds really bad.

The second sentence's purpose was to explain why someone (me) would say that $63,600 in attorneys fees was paltry. It wasn't meant to be two separate ideas.