Am I allowed...

[Hänsl]

...to offer custom modified .mpq's for our private server player base? i've heard blizzard wouldn't like this much.

[Skarn]

It won't cause problems unless you force your players to pay for playing on your server.

[Hänsl]

I may not understand your sarcasm, so a "Yes" or "No" would be more helpful

I dont have a clue about it, otherwise I wouldnt ask for it.

[Skarn]

I may not understand your sarcasm, so a "Yes" or "No" would be more helpful

I dont have a clue about it, otherwise I wouldnt ask for it.

It would be a sarcasm if I said: No, they will put you in jail. But I did not.
I told you directly that nothing bad is gonna happen unless you start demading money from people to play on you server.

[Hänsl]

So I did missunderstand your answer.

Thank you anyway  :lol:

[Magnus]

In most countries you are NOT allowed to distribute copyright protected content in any way. This includes textures, models, databases (dbc), data collections, programs, scripts and more.

Therefore the service of a p-server, the distribution of MPQs and the content of most websites is not allowed.

Thanks to Blizzard Activision they do not pursue small and free p-server projects atm.

[Смердокрыл]

In most countries you are NOT allowed to distribute copyright protected content in any way

In most countries police does NOT give a shit. I mean, people torrent games before they are officially released and nobody does anything about it. Besides, Blizz are too busy raping lore to care about little private servers.

[Alastor]

Lizzard entertaiment can "f*ck off" all private servers since they can swim in all those moneyz they have

[Steff]

If you run a server you almost did a violation of copy right law in most countrys.
Because databases are also saved under this laws. And the DBs you need to run the server is a sniffed one from original Blizzard data.

So as even running is something Blizzard could catch you fore.... distributing custom patches dont make it much worth.

And as others already say. Blizzard most time dont care if you dont have 10 000 players and ask them for money

[MountainLion]

It always comes down to money for Blizzard.

For them it is more expensive to go after 'small time' servers even if they are making/earning a profit. The only cases where Blizzard would want to sue a private server is if it's population (like Steff mentioned) is high enough to generate thousands of dollars a month.

In other words, if a private server earns enough money to be sued (a profitable law file against) they will sue the private server only if they can win the case.

These are the two main things to consider:

1.- How much does the private server earn? Is it enough money that Blizzard can win in a court case against?

2.- In what country is the private server being hosted? Blizzard can not extend their legal rights to certain countries, at all.

Those are the two key elements to consider. If you take care of those two things, you are 100% safe.

[Amaroth]

In other words, hire VPS hosted in Russia .

[Steff]

Or just dont make money with a game you did not create yourself...

[Valkryst]

Nobody cares, at-all. Do whatever you want, but don't get caught.

Your chances of getting caught rise if you're making money off of the server and they rise even higher with the amount that you make.