Game Master

[I have a STD]

inb4 the lock

OT: Private servers are illegal

[Arcilux]

No. It is illegal. Taking someone else's copyrighted work and using it without permission is illegal.
Copyright infringement for only personal use is still copyright infringement. (well, not everywhere, but in most places.)
The law is against copyright infringement/theft.

Exactly, I know that copyright infringement is a gray area of law, and seldom actually prosecuted, but people love to assume that since they have done something without getting in trouble it is not illegal. Private servers are not illegal, if and only if you have Blizzards permission, or make your own game without using any of the copyrighted names, code, images, videos, sounds, or creative ideas of WoW. Technically, the private server itself is not illegal, but the moment you run WoW on it, that is illegal.

Which if you read the law blizz just strongarms people and files lawsuits.. if it ever made it to court i don't think it would be upheld, but hey, who has the most money here.. a wow player or blizz? (assuming this is a full private server and not one of those donate to play where you are making money off of your efforts.. a "local" private server could hardly be sued or be worth the money blizz would spend in doing so..)

Again, just because it isn't usually prosecuted, does not mean it is legal. Jaywalking is illegal, but almost never upheld. Speeding is illegal, but with the flow of traffic people usually get away with it.

[legendariuz]

[muffinboy]

Call blizzard and ask them xd

[allay]

xd.

[Leeyo]

Please.. Please don't feed the painfully obvious troll..

[darkblood14]

No. It is illegal. Taking someone else's copyrighted work and using it without permission is illegal.
Copyright infringement for only personal use is still copyright infringement. (well, not everywhere, but in most places.)
The law is against copyright infringement/theft.

U have no idea what are you talking about mister.

1. Do you have any idea how a wow private server looks like?

2. On what bases you say that ANYTHING in a private server is protected by copyright? That is why it is called emu... it just emulate server responses that the client would expect. Or are you trying to tell us that private servers are copied from the real blizz servers? in this case u fail.

3. Remember that is some countries breaking blizzard eula is debatable and you have a big chance that the law is with you not with them.

[Spartinz]

private servers are illegal?

Nooooo its just a copy of the game for free... that cant be illegal! (sarcasm if u didnt notice)

[darkblood14]

Nooooo its just a copy of the game for free... that cant be illegal! (sarcasm if u didnt notice)

In fact private servers alone are not just a copy of the game for free. A good example would be if i build ANOTHER game(good example would be clientless bots that were killed by warden, only that your private server won't need a warden reply... it can do the same for you private server negating implications with wow) that acts exactly as wow itself does in terms of server communication and hold a server for THAT game blizzard would be unable to act against you as you have a game that HAPPENS to run exactly as wow in terms of network protocol (ok more than that, however easy to defend in a court).

[Renshe]

Google is your friend

I don't know if private servers are illegal or not, LOTS of people use them, and they don't seem to be being shut down any time soon. If you host your own that only you can connect to, you should be fine, and you are a GM (as long as you make your account GM, usually just "admin" "admin" for username and password). I've hosted some before (that only I could connect too), just to play around with being an admin, and made some pretty cool things. It's fun being able to add any spell to your spellbook.

Another thing, if you a question about different GM commands, or spawning item commands, google it. It will do a hell of a lot more then posting on a forum. (People are dick)

P.S: You're not going to get banned on retail

[axio]

Nooooo its just a copy of the game for free... that cant be illegal! (sarcasm if u didnt notice)

Yeah, but if you bought the game, it wasn't free o.O I know it's still against the EULA, but TECHNICALLY you purchased the game, your monthly subscription is for updates/support/server connectivity. Now, if you downloaded the game with a trial code or off bittorrent then I can understand.

Anyway, this isn't the place to ask for that kind of thing... but if you Google it I'm sure you will find what you are looking for.

[Cactrot]

U have no idea what are you talking about mister.

1. Do you have any idea how a wow private server looks like?

2. On what bases you say that ANYTHING in a private server is protected by copyright? That is why it is called emu... it just emulate server responses that the client would expect. Or are you trying to tell us that private servers are copied from the real blizz servers? in this case u fail.

3. Remember that is some countries breaking blizzard eula is debatable and you have a big chance that the law is with you not with them.

FUNFACT: Did you know that using roms of SNES games is illegal too? It's just emulation, but it's STEALING THEIR CODE. When you use their code without their permission, it is illegal. It's just like stealing a copy of windows. You don't get to just take all their work and go "hur, it's emulation, so it's not illegal." It is.