Notes

The $88 Million Server: Private WoW Server Op Loses Big

How seriously does Blizzard take the operation of private World of Warcraft servers? Datchley Is Blogging On August 10th the company was awarded a stunning $88,594,539.00 judgment against a woman who operated a business running her own WoW server and selling items via Paypal. That may seem steep, but over $3 million of that amount came from "inappropriate profits" the woman made from running the server. That's right: her private server, run under the name Scapegaming, was a multimillion dollar business. It also made her a very attractive target for litigation.



Running private servers violates the EULA, DMCA



Creating a private server, and then selling access and items to players on that server, breaks the World of WarCraft End User Licensing Agreement and Terms of Use in many ways. By agreeing to the EULA, you promise not to "host, provide or develop matchmaking services for the Game or intercept, emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Blizzard in any way, for any purpose, including without limitation unauthorized play over the internet, network play, or as part of content aggregation networks." This agreement clearly prohibits you from playing on any server other than Blizzard's.



According to court documents, the server was not small. It hosted 32,000 players at one time. The website's community contained 427,393 players in June 2008. This is where the math comes into play if you think that Blizzard has been given too much money.



The document states, "Based on the allegations, it's reasonable to infer that Defendant had provided each of his users with anticircumvention products and services on at minimum one occasion." "While Plaintiff cannot prove this fact conclusively, the Court must draw every reasonable inference in Plaintiff's favour due to Defendant's inability to participate in litigation."



The woman in question did not appear in court and was therefore slapped for violating the DMCA for each user. After making a few million from running a private server, you'd think it would be a good idea to save a little back just in case the company in question decides to come after you.



According to court, the statutory penalties were actually quite low. The $200 per circumvention fine is a minimum statutory penalty, and it was multiplied in this case by 427,393 people. The judgment stated that "To the extent this figure seems unreasonably high, Congress has mandated it and the Court cannot deviate from this approach."



Blizzard also argued that every Paypal transaction constituted a circumvention, but the court struck that one down. The amount Blizzard claimed it was owed looking at the Paypal transactions? Additional $20886,200 in statutory compensation.


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