Classic World of Warcraft Discussion [Megathread]

[Duronos]

Nostalrius wasn't California. It wasn't paying for itself out of thin air to operate with the whole of its playerbase not paying a dime. Stop being so ignorant.

Nostalrius used a veiled paypal method that you had to ask a mod privately for in order to donate to pay for the servers expenditure and maintenance to operate. Privately being a keyword. You would not find the link anywhere in its forums. This wasn't a secret.

I know this, I played on the server for quite a bit. It's not really directly profiting and the argument could be used that they weren't if this is all that was happening. There is no actual 100% solid evidence that they actually made money off of this for their own personal gain.

EDIT: What another guy said on the next page was that there is a direct link.

[Relapses]

I know this, I played on the server for quite a bit. It's not really directly profiting and the argument could be used that they weren't if this is all that was happening. There is no actual 100% solid evidence that they actually made money off of this for their own personal gain.

Does it matter whether they made money? Do you honestly think profitability is one of the check marks Blizzard has to make sure is ticked when they issue a C&D for IP theft?

[Duronos]

Bzzt wrong. You are going off the donations near the end which they were sending directly to the company. When they FIRST opened not even 3 weeks in there was a donation thread on their forums that was open for multiple months. THAT money, where did it go? Do YOU know? You don't even know how much they got. You just ASSUME they are all totally innocent and not profiting from it.

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Factually know? Really? You have the data that proves where every cent went and how much they got? Do share. Factually? LOL.

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Look real close. This is me giving a fuck about 'producing an argument'. You were wrong, tried to spout shit off as fact without doing a shred of research. This thread already covered the paypal those people opened within three WEEKS of opening the server.

Like you have no links, no actual proof. I don't whay makes you so angry that people play Vanilla over Legion but it is what is, it doesn't affect you. You're getting way to emotional and it's extremely unsettling.

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Does it matter whether they made money? Do you honestly think profitability is one of the check marks Blizzard has to make sure is ticked when they issue a C&D for IP theft?

No but that's the thing that often decides whether or not a court case is even worth pursuing. All I'm trying to say is, IP theft is potentially not enough or worth it to go after them because they could still lose that argument potentially. You have servers that literally do profit and Blizzard doesn't go after them because of much of hassle it is.

Things can be illegal and you won't get prosecuted for it because in the end nobody really cares enough since it doesn't really affect you.

[FelPlague]

Sorry, I just have literal zero respect for anyone supporting Nost after how they're behaving. Blizzard said they're not going to announce something at Blizzcon but are still looking at it, and yet they remained obstinate and threatened to go forward if Blizzard didn't announce anything still.

And now, what was already going to happen, happened and they've burned any bridge they had left. They think because their petitions with thousands of fake signatures on it was sent to them and they got to visit and have a meeting, they're entirely to have every e-mail they send to Blizzard responded to and that Blizzard has to have legacy servers up and announced by Blizzcon or they're going to "take matters into their own hands".

They perfectly embody how childish vanilla server fanbase is, and I'm glad they've fucked any chance they've had because of their stupid unrealistic expectations.

yes nost are starting to look like complete assholes, they had the chance to be our ambassadors to blizz, but from their side of the story it sounds like blizzard whent silent, however there is allways 2 sides to every story so

[Duronos]

Also you can send a C&D for any reason even if it's not a valid reason. They aren't a warrant.

[Mahourai]

Nostalrius used a veiled paypal method that you had to ask a mod privately for in order to donate to pay for the servers expenditure and maintenance to operate. Privately being a keyword. You would not find the link anywhere in its forums. This wasn't a secret.

This is not true. They may have been distributing it secretly when the server opened, but by March 15th 2015 there was a plainly visible link posted by their administration linking to their Paypal. Source

[Relapses]

No but that's the thing that often decides whether or not a court case is even worth pursuing. All I'm trying to say is, IP theft is potentially not enough or worth it to go after them because they could still lose that argument potentially. You have servers that literally do profit and Blizzard doesn't go after them because of much of hassle it is.

Things can be illegal and you won't get prosecuted for it because in the end nobody really cares enough since it doesn't really affect you.

That's not at all how this works. What determines whether a court case would be successful is whether or not what the offending party is doing is illegal. And no matter how many different ways you try to justify what Nost is doing, at the end of the day they're using copyrighted assets to run their server. There isn't a court of law on this planet which wouldn't see it this way and govern accordingly.

You can make an argument about how likely they are to get prosecuted -- but please do not insult anybody's intelligence by pretending what they're doing isn't illegal because they're "not showing profits."

[Deleted]

That's not at all how this works. What determines whether a court case would be successful is whether or not what the offending party is doing is illegal.

Hahaha, damn son, you need a reality check.

Yeah, that is the way it works on Matlock episodes, but in real life you can't just say "it's obvious this is illegal", you need to prove it with hard evidence, and gathering those in these cases is not as easy as you think.

[Relapses]

Hahaha, damn son, you need a reality check.

Yeah, that is the way it works on Matlock episodes, but in real life you can't just say "it's obvious this is illegal", you need to prove it with hard evidence, and gathering those in these cases is not as easy as you think.

Holy fucking shit, are you really so dense as to believe that using copyrighted assets isn't about the most plainly evident case of IP theft imaginable? Are you fucking serious?

[Deleted]

Are you fucking serious?

Yes.
Your ideas on how courts work are silly and apparently based on cartoons.

[Relapses]

Yes.
Your ideas on how courts work are silly and apparently based on cartoons.

My idea of court is based in this thing called "reality" where stealing somebody else's copyrighted ~anything~ is illegal.

[Duronos]

That's not at all how this works. What determines whether a court case would be successful is whether or not what the offending party is doing is illegal. And no matter how many different ways you try to justify what Nost is doing, at the end of the day they're using copyrighted assets to run their server. There isn't a court of law on this planet which wouldn't see it this way and govern accordingly.

You can make an argument about how likely they are to get prosecuted -- but please do not insult anybody's intelligence by pretending what they're doing isn't illegal because they're "not showing profits."

The problem is it may not being illegal, there is a chance that Blizzard could lose this case as there is no case in the past that sets any precedent for this.

[Relapses]

The problem is it may not being illegal, there is a chance that Blizzard could lose this case as there is no case in the past that sets any precedent for this.

There's zero chance Blizzard would lose because there is precedent for this. I mean fuck, just about any copyright protection case in the last 20 years would be applicable. You do not get to use a company's copyrighted material simply because the service they're providing isn't available. This is written -- in no uncertain terms -- in the EULA that you agreed to when you played Vanilla while it was relevant and that very same EULA is still just as applicable today as it was 12 years ago.

Again, you can argue about how likely it is for Blizzard to actually pursue such a case. I personally think it's almost entirely unlikely. But to sit here and say that there's any possibility that what Nost and other private realms are doing isn't implicit and clear IP theft is insulting to the very principles of copyright protection.

[Raetary]

why is this thread still open?

because the mods and 90% of the users here dont want to deal with the spammed "GIMME LUGACI!" threads all over the forum.

remember the time before the megathread?
legacy here, private server there.
annoying as hell.

[Deleted]

My idea of court is based in this thing called "reality" where stealing somebody else's copyrighted ~anything~ is illegal.

The part you fail to comprehend is that courts need evidence.

[Duronos]

There's zero chance Blizzard would lose because there is precedent for this. I mean fuck, just about any copyright protection case in the last 20 years would be applicable. You do not get to use a company's copyrighted material simply because the service they're providing isn't available. This is written -- in no uncertain terms -- in the EULA that you agreed to when you played Vanilla while it was relevant and that very same EULA is still just as applicable today as it was 12 years ago.

Again, you can argue about how likely it is for Blizzard to actually pursue such a case. I personally think it's almost entirely unlikely. But to sit here and say that there's any possibility that what Nost and other private realms are doing isn't implicit and clear IP theft is insulting to the very principles of copyright protection.

EULA's hold next to nothing in court, they're like waivers and I've already explained this in this thread but I'll explain it again. If little Timmy goes to a climbing place and climbs on the climbing wall without a harness and falls while his mother had signed a waiver beforehand, his mother can still sue and win. There is literally no precedent for this case because there hasn't been an MMO outside of absurdly profiting and not hiding it at all (Scapegaming) that has done this. That case isn't the same as taking Nost to court, taking Nost to court would be the first major case for this instance.

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The part you fail to comprehend is that courts need evidence.

For whatever reason he thinks that using the copyrighted material is considered evidence, it's not as black and white as that. You can make a case that it's not the base game anymore and it really then goes down to whatever the judge or jury (if a jury is used) thinks, it's an extremely grey area because client side stuff isn't technically illegal. If they don't have a torrent link on their website then they can argue that they never gave out free copies of Vanilla, anyone with the CD's can download Vanilla onto their computer.

The EULA says it's illegal but the EULA wouldn't really even apply in court, it would be thrown out terribly fast if used as an argument and Blizzard's lawyers wouldn't even bother with it.

[Relapses]

The part you fail to comprehend is that courts need evidence.

Please, explain to me how you think that using assets that Blizzard owns a copyright for is anything other than evidence of IP theft. I'm legitimately curious.

@Duronos, I don't know why you keep trying to invent loopholes. They're using copyrighted materials to run their server. Blizzard has every fucking right in the universe to shut down their server. If it went to court, the court would 100% side with Blizzard because they own the fucking copyright and that is literally the reason copyright protection even exists. I don't know why you say there are grey areas here. The lengths you're going to defend Nost against something that'll likely never happen is positively mind boggling.

[Deleted]

Under court ON WHAT COUNTRY? That's the question. If it's on USA, yes, Blizzard is 100% right. If it's France, Nost have probably 50% chances to win in court.

So USA or France?

[Deleted]

Please, explain to me how you think that using assets that Blizzard owns a copyright for is anything other than evidence of IP theft. I'm legitimately curious.

You do realize you need to link it to actual people that's the hard part?

Okay, I'm also curious, since you're such a legal expert let me ask you, who exactly does Blizzard sue here, where and for what?

Let's say you have one guy in one country who developed the code, another in a second one who runs the server, a third who handles the money located in a third country, login server is located in a fourth country and the server proper in a whole nother, fifth country altogether.
And that's simplifying things here, because there's more people and more countries...

[Duronos]

Please, explain to me how you think that using assets that Blizzard owns a copyright for is anything other than evidence of IP theft. I'm legitimately curious.

@Duronos, I don't know why you keep trying to invent loopholes. They're using copyrighted materials to run their server. Blizzard has every fucking right in the universe to shut down their server. If it went to court, the court would 100% side with Blizzard because they own the fucking copyright and that is literally the reason copyright protection even exists. I don't know why you say there are grey areas here. The lengths you're going to defend Nost against something that'll likely never happen is positively mind boggling.

With your logic it implies that they should have done that and actually would yet there is a huge private server community on <popular Wrath server> and they haven't been touched. You're making it sound like Blizzard could 100% win and it would be worth their time, it's obviously not for whatever reason. But again by your logic they should yet they haven't. Are you not seeing that maybe there is a flaw in your argument?

There is a chance that they could lose the court battle and that's probably part of the reason they don't mess with it, Legion assets are not the same as Vanilla assets. Your argument is the EULA saying you can't use client side files, again the EULA will be thrown out extremely fast and probably not even used by lawyers on Blizzard's side.

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I'm not saying the odds aren't in Blizzard's favor, they are by a little bit but it's not enough to warrant a court battle.