Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

In what way?

What you stated was mostly wrong with some ambiguity thrown in there. You're being ridiculous and you're in denial.

[BadTastingPudding]

It is fair use and Nostralius would have a very strong case in court in my opinion if they could prove that they

1. didn't benefited financially from hosting the server
2. altered the source code from the original
3. hosted a server which was providing a service blizzard was not, i.e they were not taking customers away from Blizzard, since they are hosting Vanilla wow and they're essentially hosting and entirely different game.

Please explain how this is fair use in the slightest? I genuinely would like to know how on earth you see this as anything even slightly resembling fair use. Also those facts have absolutely no bearing on the case, if they were suing for significant damages perhaps the third would come into consideration at the end if anything. Like honestly I have nothing against Nost, but you're talking nonsense right now.

[cFortyfive]

They should HIRE the people that made Nost - they're just shooting themselves in the foot for no reason, it's madness.

So by not hiring those people providing a service they could provide themselves is "madness" ? Interesting.
Anyways don't get why people are so mad about it there is no guarantee for such services to persist forever.

[onesBronson]

I played on the server for a good while, just to get the vanilla wow experience. I stopped playing a couple months ago with about 3 mid level toons total. Sad to say I got bored out of my mind while leveling up between 30-40. Vanilla WoW is ok for some, but I'm so spoiled with all the updated content on legit Blizzard servers that I was sourly disappointed. I dunno, maybe I expected too much out of something outdated than the modern game itself.

Sucks that it got the C&D treatment like most other private servers back in TBC era, but it just goes to show that you can win against Blizz no matter what.

[Synadrasa]

1. They provided a way to donate them, didn't they? Should be enough.
2. They altered the files in a way they could run them on their system.
3. Every player on their realms is a potential (not guaranteed) customer on Blizzards realms. But it would be difficult to prove that. It's an assumption with no way to prove one way or the other.

All they would have to prove is that the experience on their vanilla servers are drastically different then live to prove their demographic is not interested in live, hence they are not stealing customers or potential money from Blizzard.

[Kavoo]

It is fair use and Nostralius would have a very strong case in court in my opinion if they could prove that they

Hmm no. Just no. You can't just take someone's else software, alter it and claim to be something else or to be yours.

[OreoLover]

It is fair use and Nostralius would have a very strong case in court in my opinion if they could prove that they

1. didn't benefited financially from hosting the server
2. altered the source code from the original
3. hosted a server which was providing a service blizzard was not, i.e they were not taking customers away from Blizzard, since they are hosting Vanilla wow and they're essentially hosting and entirely different game.

Essentially able to prove they host a server that is purely for fun that is NOT the same as wow and does not take any money or customers from blizzard.

"... facts and ideas are not protected by copyright—only their particular expression or fixation merits such protection."

"The third factor assesses the amount and substantiality of the copyrighted work that has been used. In general, the less that is used in relation to the whole, the more likely the use will be considered fair."

"The court not only investigates whether the defendant's specific use of the work has significantly harmed the copyright owner's market, but also whether such uses in general, if widespread, would harm the potential market of the original."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_u...pyrighted_work

We're not lawyers, but the lawyers were happy to be involved.

[Synadrasa]

Hmm no. Just no.

called fair use

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

All they would have to prove is that the experience on their vanilla servers are drastically different then live to prove their demographic is not interested in live, hence they are not stealing customers or potential money from Blizzard.

This isn't true at all... Do you have any sources to back this up? Any previous cases or precedence?

[Kolvarg]

Don't play dumb. You know exactly what I meant.

Not saying it's exactly the same ofc. But if you are defending people must respect Blizzard's option of protecting their IP, shouldn't you also respect their option of not wanting people looking at the game's files?

And I don't mean all this specifically just to you, not personal.

[McCrazy]

Was playing on an UO RP freeshard for years. They are awesome and more or less accepted by EA.
But I read it's more about the server side and if you more or less stole the software to run the servers or if it was developed by someone else than the company behind the game. There are a few different ones like Sphere and RunUO.

The question is, if this private server used Blizzard's software.

Of cause there are loads of fanboys that are happy about this, like they get a share of Blizzard's income. Never played on a private WoW server but I'm not celebrating one being closed like some people here. What kind of die hard fanboy must you be?

Not really on topic, but: As far as I remember, the problem with the UO-free-shards was EA's fault from the beginning, because they left some big hole in the EULA and for a skilled skripter it's no problem to set up a UO-Sphere.
I myself had a homesphere running and building things for fun.

[Deleted]

....You do know what Consent means yeah?, If not here:

permission for something to happen or agreement to do something.

Blizzard allow you to post their game on youtube

"As a community content creator, you are permitted to create video productions using Blizzard’s Content, and to distribute them freely on your website, or on other websites where viewers can freely view your Production." - http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company...deopolicy.html

As youtube is free for everyone its okay. so its not stealing.

And if they don't consent, and you still post videos with WoW material on youtube or anywhere else, you are literally stealing from them.

Consent can be withdrawn at any time.

Yes means yes.

[Orby]

called fair use

Private Servers do not fall under Fair USe

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner.

Seriously there can't be this many idiots on MMO-champion...

[BadTastingPudding]

All they would have to prove is that the experience on their vanilla servers are drastically different then live to prove their demographic is not interested in live, hence they are not stealing customers or potential money from Blizzard.

No? if anything that would help them avoid being heavily punished financially, it still wouldn't make what they did legal.

[Deleted]

Not going to bother reading the whole thread since I can see from the first few pages its mostly going to be the fanboys clapping their hands with glee.

Nost was great fun and had a good community, and the people running were hardly making money off of the server. I dont see how you can argue it was stealing business from Blizzard when it was free and was basically offering a different game to retail. Use the mental gymnastics you want to make out this was some noble act, this just stinks of overcompensation on Blizzard's part because some people didn't like what they did with retail.

I'm genuinely a little upset, glad you're all so happy.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Not going to bother reading the whole thread since I can see from the first few pages its mostly going to be the fanboys clapping their hands with glee.

Nost was great fun and had a good community, and the people running were hardly making money off of the server. I dont see how you can argue it was stealing business from Blizzard when it was free and was basically offering a different game to retail. Use the mental gymnastics you want to make out this was some noble act, this just stinks of overcompensation on Blizzard's part because some people didn't like what they did with retail.

I'm genuinely a little upset, glad you're all so happy.

How do you actually know they weren't making any money?

[Kryos]

"Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to use its products for all commercial purposes. The only exceptions to this rule are if you participate in partner programs with YouTube, Justin.tv, Blip.tv, Own3d.tv, or Ustream.tv (the “Production Websites”) whereby a Production Website may pay you for views of a Production if you are accepted into their partner program."

Nostralius was no partner program - so their product may not be used since they made money via donations:

http://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=37403

Quote from the Nostralrius hosters:
"As some of you may have already noticed, the hidden donation link within our forum has been removed a few weeks ago. This means that we'll no longer accept any further donations whatsoever. [...] We are going to provide you with the direct link to our hosting provider, so you can support all of the infrastructure that the Nostalrius Begins project needs, putting the staff officially outside the loop of upkeep, allowing us to once again become independent of the financial constraints."

So they did make money with this project and planned to make more. This is when Blizzard had enough.

[Idoru]

Not saying it's exactly the same ofc. But if you are defending people must respect Blizzard's option of protecting their IP, shouldn't you also respect their option of not wanting people looking at the game's files?

And I don't mean all this specifically just to you, not personal.

If Blizzard came out and said that they didn't want MMO-C and others to datamine, then I would respect that decision.
What they have said is "Do not use out IP without our permission", and you people refuse to respect that.

[Deleted]

Why are people discussing the legal issues though? I mean everyone should know that it is obviously not legal because it's pretty much the same as piracy. The issue here is that this is a product there is a massive demand for, and Blizzard who could provide that product is simply not providing it. There is no legal option, without the private servers vanilla WoW is dead and lost forever. Just imagine if Nintendo decided to sue every single emulator website out there and take down all of them, everyone who doesn't own a functional Game Boy, SNES or Nintendo 64 would never have access to those games ever again.

Nintendo is known for ridiculous copyright claims lately. That's a company ran by 65-year old white collar guys that know nothing about modern entertainment anymore. If they could sue those, they would. It's just impropable to take down so many emulators from the web, after they've been widespread over the net for last 20+ years. Heck, you can google NES rom's and DL them easily. It doesn't even require dodgy programs like utorrent.

Aside from that, the whole "piracy", "stealing" argument is absurd. You're assuming that Nostralius is taking customers away from retail, thus they're technically stealing from them. That has been a running dumb anti-piracy argument for decades. Becasue people ASSUME that ALL the pirated copy users will buy the game if piracy was not a thing. Which is about as far from truth as Andromeda Galaxy is from us.

[Zerfenus]

Since a lot of people have brought up the EULA, i'm just wondering how long are you bound to the EULA?