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Private server company to pay Blizzard 88 million dollars.
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Post by
abulurd
http://www.wow.com/2010/08/14/private-server-company-forced-to-pay-blizzard-88-million/
Interesting post up on Wowinsider, apparently a judge ruled that a company running a private server which did microtransactions has to pay blizzard 88 million.
Thoughts?
Post by
Haxzor
owned
Post by
Garenzo
Read this yesterday... it's an insanely high ammount but at the same time they did make a lot of money off of someone else's game by illegal means so meh, had it coming.
Post by
240140
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Post by
345952
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Post by
Monday
owned
Post by
500456
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Post by
MrSCH
Kinda feel bad. Whatever kind of errors these people made, not sure I could justify ruining their entire lives over it. That's what $88 million is going to do. They're finished.
(And to you people who said they had it coming... I disagree. Imagine dropping litter - you know it's illegal, but what would you think if they charged you $1.5 million or something for it :O Illegal where I am at least)
Post by
Nipah
According to the story, they made some huge, insane amount of money off of the micro-transactions.
"$3,053,339 of inappropriate profits".
3. Million. Dollars.
For stealing someone else's creation and bending it to their will. It would be like if I took the Mac OS, wired it to work on PCs, and then marketed it as NipOS, selling for $100/each.
Hell, even in that case, I would've done more work than those bastards on the private server... all they probably did was follow a "how to lawlz hack da blizzard game" FAQ, set up some stupidly named, overpowered "pay for me to pwn" weapons, and sit back and reap the benefits of other peoples hard work.
They did have it coming, and I personally don't pity thieves.
Post by
641989
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Post by
Nipah
However, you have to realize that Blizzard is a business that relies on the subscriptions moreso than selling of the boxes. If instead, a person decides to take that money and place it into the same product provided by another organization that was acquired illegally then a problem arises.
Also, you should realize that in cases like this 88million is not likely what they will actually pay but instead whatever a final amount after an appeal reduces that $85,478,600 in damages. A very similar instance is when someone gets busted for downloading (really uploading) music files. They get hit with multimillion dollar cases for a single song, but after everything is said and done the cost drops (still a lot, but much more "reasonable").
That being said, they had it coming.
I meant to address this as well, but it slipped my mind.
Blizzard gets big news based off the HUGE amount in the lawsuit, thus putting the fear in all the potential/existing private server runners... then, when the appeal goes through, its brought down to a more reasonable (but probably still financially crippling) amount that fits better in our reality.
So headlines for Blizzard on the gaming news front, fear in the hearts of thieves everywhere, and no money for the rest of their lives for the perpetrators.
... holy crap, I spelled perpetrators correctly the first time!
Post by
90137
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24996
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90985
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Post by
Sheridan
The company will probably just file for bankruptcy so they can avoid the huge settlement. If their assets are 3 million or less there's no way Blizzard is going to see anymore than that.
Post by
obiwaynekenobi
The problem is with these ridiculous judgments. Like the above person said it's the same like the record companies suing and WINNING millions of dollars. Their math is incorrect and is just blatantly inflated to "punish" a perceived wrong.
The American judicial system is downright ridiculous.
Post by
MrSCH
Errrr !@#$ you Wowhead. Where's my reply? Lost in the wind! ok well here we go again lol.
Nice try
Kinda bull@#$% is that? Nice try? I'm 'trying' nothing, I'm stating my opinion. If you don't like my analogy, tough @#$%, you don't have to agree with me, but I'm not 'trying' anything.
Also, what the hell is with all the assumptions?
Imagine what they are making from running private servers for games that aren't suing them.
assume that the private server companies are the same ones selling gold
You just shouldn't make such assumptions.
Post by
Drefanator
Owed.
Post by
296147
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Post by
Taurgor
Nice try? I'm 'trying' nothing, I'm stating my opinion. If you don't like my analogy, tough @#$%, you don't have to agree with me, but I'm not 'trying' anything.
Okay, let's make your analogy a bit more fitting. Let's say you get paid by other people to throw out their trash because they don't have time to do it, so you take the cash and you throw it all on some field that's not yours. That's what that private server did. They took the money of people and let them play on a game that's not theirs. They're not being caught littering one can, but complete dumpsters.
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