On using game assets and the legality thereof..

[Youn]

MMO has been asked a few times not to display things over the years. They generally take items down that Blizzard has asked to be taken down. It gives them the ability to be the site that people come to to see the news about World of Warcraft. It also gives them early access to items other people would not be allowed to view.

So, it's a two way street with Curse and Blizzard.

[RobertMugabe]

Doesn't matter if the current game is total crap. That's got nothing to do with this. From Blizzards and a legal standpoint it's black and white. Play the game in it's current form, or don't play at all. Playing stolen/pirated content isn't part of that.

Hosting private Servers in the US is illegal, beacuse it's against Blizzard's ToS... Otherwise, private servers do not steal/pirate any property of Blizzard!

[Raelbo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Well done, you linked a definition. A definition I have known and understood for years. I suggest you do the same

[Icedcoffeee]

Bah, this discussion of legality is all over the place.
There are two types of law, generally, at play here:

1. Intellectual property law (this includes):

a. Copyright: Think of this as rights in content, like the text of a novel, or indeed the software of a video game. Hosting a private server violates copyright law regardless of whether you charge money for it, just like giving away copies of book for free still violates copyright law even though you aren't making money for it. There are exceptions, however, the most important of which is:

i. Fair use: this is the big exception allowing for free speech type commentary/reporting/etc., relating to the content. So you can show clips of gameplay in a news article, or datamined info on the front page of MMO-C. This is complicated, but generally as long as you are adding something to the copyrighted work, you will be covered.

b. Trademark: Think of this as rights in names (and logos, etc.). The idea here is protection of goodwill associated with branding, so if someone else call's themself "Blizzard," or their game "World of Warcraft," that implicates trademark. The important points here are that the use of the trademark must be "likely to cause confusion" or "tarnish" their goodwill. Blizzard could bring trademark actions here, but the primary concern is probably copyright.

2. Contract Law: this is basically the EULA. The restriction on datamining is interesting, as generally you can sign away all sorts of rights, but I'm not sure whether it would be enforced by courts. And even if it were, the remedy might not be the forced removal of content, but rather money damages, which courts prefer.

Giant caveat: Since this is an international case, there is a lot of potential complexity/ambiguity added by which country's laws apply, IP treaties, etc.

[Deleted]

Dude, just let it go...

Pretty much. Blizzard has made clear that they do not want private servers in particular. Let it go.

[willtron]

Hosting private Servers in the US is illegal, beacuse it's against Blizzard's ToS... Otherwise, private servers do not steal/pirate any property of Blizzard!

Lol. /10char

[Deleted]

I wouldnt be surprised if Boubouille have a deal with Blizzard to do all that he does.

Seeing as how MMO-Champion is owned by Curse and it’s becoming a well-known site, think it’s legal as far as Blizzard cares.

[Deleted]

Well done, you linked a definition. A definition I have known and understood for years. I suggest you do the same

Apparently you don't.

[esmifra]

George Lucas changed the original trilogy.

The original movie with the original effects are gone, the new versions of the movies are only legally available with the new "updated" effects.

There's a group that started to recreate the original trilogy as it was back then with the same effects because they consider that the best version of a movie they love.

Lucas Films has the rights to those movies, they have the right to sell the movie as they wish, still i wouldn't consider what people are doing to be stealing, and the motives are positive.

I put this case in the same box. Blizz has the right to do what they want and i have to say that having decided to stomp these servers it their right. But i can disagree with their choice and understand that what the motives behind this servers being created were.

[arcaneshot]

Seeing as how MMO-Champion is owned by Curse and it’s becoming a well-known site, think it’s legal as far as Blizzard cares.

It's legal because Blizzard allows it; it's not a thing exclusive to Curse (see WoWhead).

George Lucas changed the original trilogy.

The original movie with the original effects are gone, the new versions of the movies are only legally available with the new "updated" effects.

There's a group that started to recreate the original trilogy as it was back then with the same effects because they consider that the best version of a movie they love.

Lucas Films has the rights to those movies, they have the right to sell the movie as they wish, still i wouldn't consider what people are doing to be stealing, and the motives are positive.

You're oversimplifying what's going on here because Lucasfilms released a DVD set of the original trilogy based off the Laserdisc versions.

[esmifra]

IYou're oversimplifying what's going on here because Lucasfilms released a DVD set of the original trilogy based off the Laserdisc versions.

I don't think I am. I think it's exactly the same, specially the motivations the fans have, the fact that you have access to the star wars DVDs and not Vanilla just makes Nostalrium even more understandable.

I'm not saying Blizz does not have the right to make this decision, it does, i just understand what Nostalrium was trying to achieve and i don't think Blizz was being 'ripped off', the users were just trying to experience something that was not available to them otherwise. Still Blizz decided rightfully so they don't allow it. A bad PR move in my opinion.

[Raelbo]

Apparently you don't.

ok, if you say so. I bow to your eternal wisdom oh enlightened one

- - - Updated - - -

A bad PR move in my opinion.

Difficult to assess to be honest. Yes, this move was always going to piss off a bunch of players which hurts the game. But at the same time, allowing the likes of Nostalrium to operate unchecked is also hurting the game. In the end I suspect that the long term damage done by private servers is a lot worse than the short term pain they suffered here. Honestly, Blizzard should have squashed this thing months ago. It's like a nasty infection - the longer you leave it to fester, the worse it gets.

[Kaleredar]

I played Nostalrius at the same time alongside lived WoD. The main reason being only for nostalgia purposes. It took no time at all to full MC/BWL clear and get Horde PvP factions exalted with friends, while amassing Arcanite factory characters, while also valor/ring grinding + PvP on WoD.

Eventually I realized the time expense no longer was worth doing the grind all-over again continuously before I quit Nost six months ago with several hundred arcanite bars in the bank and many, many stacks of crystals. It got boring, and at the rate Nost was growing, knew it'd be much too big before it'd see Naxx release, and Blizz shut it down.

I was correct. Before AQ gates, even. To say someone only plays one or the other game and not both is a pretty asinine thing to say.

I'm not saying people wouldn't play both.

But would you have paid 30 dollars a month to play on both servers? And how many other people would lose interest, just like you did?

[Redroniksre]

Lets not get into details about what's possible with private servers, otherwise this thread and discussion will be closed. Size has nothing to do with it, smaller ones get shut down all the time. If anything, the major component is money and profit. Blizzard will go after privates servers that make a profit off their game because that's criminal action, servers that don't line the pockets of the admins and any money is used for server upkeep through donations or whatever is civil action iirc.

Datamining is legal. That's totally different.

Blizzard does not often go after smaller servers, usually they do not care if it is a nobody server because they can easily feign ignorance and not worry about their trademark, but the bigger/profit servers are the ones that will get taken down, more so because people kept talking about it (aka, Don't talk about fight club)

[Seranthor]

Btw, why does ANOTHER of these threads exist.

Can't we just nuke this and consolidate it with the main one? Tiring enough having to deal with all these parasites that invaded mmo from the pirate server, let alone dealing with multiple threads.

This is a really good question, maybe the moderators should have a look.

[Cows For Life]

I'm not grasping, I'm asking.

Do they have the right to forbid them to use any material from their games, because "intellectual property".

That is an important question, you just have to look at videogame reviews on youtube and developers trying to take them down cause "muh copyright".

Yes, yes they do. Just look at Nintendo and Youtube. Would it be worth it for Blizzard is the real question. Because as it stands now MMO-C is just advertising the their game for them for free.

You guys need to figure out what copyright and trademarks are first so you can stop using the hazy term intellectual property. Second of all those Nintendo Youtube takedown notices are not necessarily legal. I don't believe they have been tested in court and I think Nintendo is likely to lose if it ever did make its way in front of a judge. Blizzard has also been guilty of filing dubious lawsuits in the past which may not have stood up to legal scrutiny.

[MoanaLisa]

This is a really good question, maybe the moderators should have a look.

Read the op carefully. This is really not about a private server takedown. Threads wander so it will be closed if it doesn't get back on topic. Discussion of the legal use of art assets is fine by me. Leave Nost out of it.

[Seranthor]

Read the op carefully. This is really not about a private server takedown. Threads wander so it will be closed if it doesn't get back on topic. Discussion of the legal use of art assets is fine by me. Leave Nost out of it.

So it stays as long as THAT server stays out of it? Makes sense to me.

[Morrigenn]

People, by our very nature, tend to come up with tenuous excuses to justify breaking rules/laws etc when it suits us.

BINGO! (and logic, reason and the ability to read specific documentation goes with it)

[Netherspark]

You can do anything you want with copyrighted material aside from profit from it, distribute it or claim it as your own.