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Comment by throwaway27448 | Hacker News Reader

> Blizzard is right to protect their IP

No, it's inevitable. There's nothing positive about using the law to crush competition.

Turtle WOW is not a competition to the blizzard's in my point of view. I played on Turtle WOW from time to time with my kids, like once a month, because this is the amount of time I have.

I won't buy 4 subscriptions and pay them monthly, because there is no point of paying 63$ a month for one-a-month session. So obviously I am not interested in it. Also the new gameplay that is really crippled by a lot of un-skippable tutorials and too-much-experience first levels gameplay is appalling to me, so I won't teach my kids to play this new broken WoW version, sorry.

With AI coding tools, pretty easy to use Mangos or similar to run a private server locally. They even have versions that fill the world with fake players to make it feel more MMOish.

copium argument

At the end of the day, copyright is a government-enforced monopoly. Crushing competition is literally the point.

Cases like this though make a good argument for copyright reform in my opinion. Video games probably don't need as long a copyright term as, say, books, and mods should legally protected (and copyrightable in their own right) as long as they don't function without a legal copy of the original game/program they're modifying.

Competition? From top to bottom, they stole IP for the purpose of selling it. If there was zero content in common and with no overlap in quests, locations, etc, then a fair use argument might make some sense. Instead, they chose to set up shop next to Barnes and Noble and offer to sell photocopied books that they go next door and steal, then call it competition.

> they stole IP for the purpose of selling it.

The concept of IP is simply nonsensical to me, let alone the clear category error of trying to apply theft to it. Blizzard was deprived of nothing. Who cares?

For new developments, absolutely, but once something has been out for decades (plural), modifying and selling that isn't so unethical. Keep in mind that Turtle WoW built off and supported that original game client from over 20 years ago, they weren't just backporting a bunch of content from Blizzard's newer releases. It's the same as if someone wanted to sell a modded Super Nintendo game, society would not be worse off for this.

> but once something has been out for decades (plural), modifying and selling that isn't so unethical

Yep, copyright used to last only 14-28 years.

It was fine then, and I believe that same term should be fine now.

In what way was anything "stolen"? The content you refer to came with the original client. They reverse engineered the protocol and let existing clients connect to that. There's as much "stealing" going on here as with the Samba team reverse-engineering the SMB1/2/3 protocols. They weren't deceptively tricking users into thinking they were the real Battle.net servers, were they?

In a sane economy and legal regime, this would be allowed under open competition rules, in the same way that car manufacturers cannot prevent aftermarket mods to be sold and installed on their models. All these online platforms have big digital moats, and projects like these are offering alternatives to an otherwise captive audience. That's why Big Platform doesn't like it, but nothing about this has anything to do with stealing.

Thinking about this some more, from now on I'm going to refer to cases like this as "user rustling". Because that's all it is: guiding users out of some corporation's paddock. And if that's seen as a crime, then that must mean that the corporation views those users as property.

Except that is not at all how the game works and your example is simply and fundamentally invalid. The content is not “included with the game”.

Every quest, every drop, every starting location, every single bit of what makes the game playable is server side. You do not get this by getting the game. This isn’t about the use of some 3d models and textures.

While they may have recreated their data item by item and quest by quest, they quite literally stole that copyrighted material (what is THAT item named, what is THAT NPC named, what is THAT quests text, what is THAT towns name) in order to replicate the classic Warcraft experience. That is, quite literally, copyright infringement for the sake of selling a competing product. I can’t steal your apples and then set up a store to sell them for a lower price next door.

If they came up with their entirely own universe and simply reused the assets but without a single reference to the Warcraft world, maybe your argument would make some sense.

Stolen? Why would a huge company not back up their IP?

I’m not sure if you are asking a serious question or making an attempt at sarcasm, but things can be “stolen” without the party being physically deprived of a thing. If someone “steals” your identity, you haven’t lost it, and yet they can cause significant damage to you. This is the same “stealing” we are talking about.

I mean, I don't disagree with you in this case, but if not this, then to a degree, what is IP for?

This just happens to be a positive example, IP still exists to restrict certain kinds of competition

I mean you can't get a clearer case of copycatting than this, as much as I'm a fan of pirate servers, assuming that they don't stifle the original game and considering calling Blizzard an 800 pound gorilla is quite an understatement in this case, I doubt this could

> but if not this, then to a degree, what is IP for?

The same thing other state-granted monopolies are for.

Totally agree with this. Blizzard nowadays is a giant, but nobody would have blamed them if they remained a small studio, trying to protect what they've worked hard for to create. Just because they have a lot of money now, doesn't legally change a thing. It sucks because Blizzard has become a shitty company, and I'd like these types of devs from Turtle WoW to be able to continue their work, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

> I mean you can't get a clearer case of copycatting than this

I'm pretty sure Turtle WoW has its own storyline, quests, etc. The story focuses heavily on extending Vanilla.

In other words, it's not a simple copycat but a fan project.

Rather than hiring and vying for talent, Blizzard is CnD their fans away.

That's what I mean by a positive example

A fan project still encroaches and Blizzard as many have pointed out is well within their rights to do this

In case I wasn't clear enough, I'm not a fan of this move, I don't think it's a good thing they're doing, however I can't deny they can choose to do it

If we want their behaviour to be constrained, then we've got to either convince them otherwise, regulate away their ability to do this or weaken copyright to prevent this

That's the reality of the situation

> A fan project still encroaches and Blizzard as many have pointed out is well within their rights to do this

Sure, but I'm sure that IP laws don't demand you send CnD any fan project[1]. In the past, they were way more lenient. I guess they got scarred by their DotA experience. And honestly DotA mismanagement was their own fault.

Stuff like that has a hugely detrimental effect; see Games Workshop and Warhammer 40k fan projects.

[1] As far as I know the law doesn't prohibit to giving the server a license to run as a non-profit or giving them a cheap, short term license.

IANAL but from what I understand, failure to enforce your IP in situations like this is often legally interpreted as a forfeit of your IP, and creates much more friction if you ever need to enforce it down the line

Sure, but giving them a generous IP license isn't considered a forfeit of your IP.

Blizzard actually went a step beyond and asked for your forfeit of any IP that you make with their tools. Not that any of those tools was used for Turtle WoW.

So why didn’t they just make a game with their own IP and avoid this whole issue in the first place?

Oh yeah, because people didn’t want a new game, they wanted free WoW.

Why do people write fanfiction rather than writing their original stuff?

> Oh yeah, because people didn’t want a new game, they wanted free WoW.

That's an error; Turtle WoW isn't a free WoW. It's WoW fixed to classic, with 2 new races, extra content. It's basically their flavor of WoW.

Free WoW exists and it's called a pirate server. This isn't it chief.

It’s WoW but it’s not WoW?

Sounds like they’re talented game designers and they sunk their whole project because they stole art and assets. Sounds like they could have made a cool, new game with their own assets and been successful if it stands so well on its own merits.

> It’s WoW but it’s not WoW?

It's substantially different from a pirate server.

> Sounds like they’re talented game designers and they sunk their whole project because they stole art and assets.

At the end of the day, they are in essence WoW modders. Plus, a new game with own assets and engine is a different beast compared to modding an existing engine.

Yes, and talented modders sometimes become a new studio, that's all I was wondering, if that was going to happen here

Turtle WoW built off a 20 year old client with their own original content. After how many decades do you think it is acceptable for people to be allowed to mod and sell their own version of it? 75 years like with Disney? Would you feel that society would be worse off if people were allowed to sell modded N64 games?

Infantile take. Here's a positive: creates incentive for people who want to compete to actually make something new.

If we could just freely clone generational hit games and make millions off them, only idiots would make new games.

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