ZakDank the issue in mu opinion is not the chance that they will crack down on the sever but the legality of it. Even if they dont crack down on it, it would still be ill-legal. When you are running a legitimate gaming community you have to have all of your servers being legitimate and not against the respective games Terms of service. By even hosting one game like this you are no longer a legitimate gaming community.

That is just my view on it, But as i said before in my opinion the risk is not worth it and i believe that Eximius Gaming should be kept 100% legal and not host cracked servers like that one

I am, As Apart of The Private Server busts, All to fimmilliar about the Legal standings for this. I support the MTWoW going up, But im Also concerned for the Future of it

How will they catch us if its like private - private sevrer..

just out of curiostity i have played on a WoW private server, i have bought the game. Its pretty simple to change where you sign in (the domain or whatever).. I don't think that it should be the servers fault if its legal... I mean if you want a burnt copy of the game thats your own risk

Sayomie , can you tell me just why you think it is illegal?

Well, It's not totally legitimate I think. Although, It just gets problematic when you get big (top 5).

Companies will often sue the biggest private servers to scare/calm others.

ex: http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/08/16/blizzard-awarded-88m-from-wow-private-server-lawsuit/

Edit: Oh, and I was wondering where l2extreme was gone: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/114181

(seems I'll have to reconsider some things)

Edit3: Host server in Netherland or HongKong.... problem solved ? <object class="emojione" data="https://resources.enjin.com/1489581540/themes/core/images/emojione/svg/1f61b.svg?0" type="image/svg+xml" standby=":p">:p</object> (nah)

on your link :

<object class="emojione" data="https://resources.enjin.com/1489581540/themes/core/images/emojione/svg/1f61b.svg?0" type="image/svg+xml" standby=":p">:p</object>

We are not stealing any source code anytime soon or making a profit from this, so we should be all clear. Also im not 100% sure but i think Canada also has different copyright laws IIRC.

Donations are considered profit by blizzard.

Donations that you receive are profits they do not earn because you highjacked a Copy Right Game. I was an admin on one of these forever. The guy went through so many legal things that he just shut it down. He also had like 20k in Donations at the end of the two years. I think he used it to put himself through college or something ....

Anyway Bad Idea, Opens minetown to a big loss

Donations have no link to blizzard at all. You donate to keep the server running, Not world of warcraft, the physical server. If blizzard took donations as profit, which they dont without good reason, they still need proof that donations are being spent on the server and not other things ( putting yourself through college!! ) which i think we can all trust sawine will use the donations correctly for the right cause.

How? Nothing from the game is hijacked, its emulated. All the server does is allow the game to connect to it, it doesnt 'hijack' it in any way. Copyright infringement is if someone uses another persons materials and :

1. Makes a profit from them. ( Sounds like your server did this. )

2. Claims them as their own.

3. Distributes a paid software ( Piracy )

4. Theft of a closed source porject. ( Stealing source code like some Ragnarok servers did )

By hosting an emulator, your technically not doing anything wrong as you never signed a EULA, because you never actually play the game when you host it. This means that people who play private servers are technically the ones who could have a legal issue.

How an admin could think that emulation is hijacking ( Illegally seize ) is beyond me and i personally wouldnt let anyone staff a server if they didnt know.

"Even if game sites collect no money, they still operate in violation of copyright laws,"

That's what I saw