[help]Hosting private server, is it legal???

[maxteam]

The topic says it all :scratch:

[MentaL]

[MackInTosh]

Not really, i've been running my server for a year and a half now. Also im pretty sure they'll shutdown legacygamers.net before any of us seeing how it's the biggest private server.

[Pinoyrealm]

Well the truth is when it comes to private servers these legal servers always improve theirs the best way to defeat private servers is to show users whats the advantage of the legal into private since anytime soon these private servers might go down and you will have to start all over again. unlike these legal everything are always in proper position

[S A D OWNAGE]

its legal unless u make it pay to play then its ilegal.

[outlaw321]

Oh Thanks, What if you just host it on your site thats it. And its free. if its legal then I go so many pro designers, devolpers, coders and every thing that can make all gfx and shit it will be pro. :P

[killerbros2]

Well... Ya Its Legal. Unless You Make People Pay As S A D OWNAGE said...[Quote] its legal unless u make it pay to play then its ilegal. So Theres Your Awnser.

[Steep]

Yo hablo espaniol y les kb a todos , putos. jejejej

[darkxl]

Yo hablo espaniol y les kb a todos , putos. jejejej

noob... -.-

[WGFreak]

It is illegal if you use their client. Their client is copyrighted.

[ThievingSix]

Actually everything is copyrighted, server and client. Reason being that we are not all taken down is it is too much work for the small company of MAIET that isn't even in the same country. IJJI..thats a different story..

[Ventrix]

Like T6 said, it is illegal since most of it is copyrighted (Server, Client, Artwork).

Private server(s) will directly affect revenue of MAIET and its publishers.
Publishers will ask us to solve the situation right away, and the only solution we will have against it is taking legal procedure to protect our intellectual property.
I appologize if I sounded like I was trying to threaten off hackers.

This is all I can say. I cannot make you understand if this true or not.
You make decisions.
We make our decisions.

No objection or arguement or anything else accepted about this.

Private server issue - GunZ Factor Forums

There was information on this on Wikipedia, but that has since been removed.

Wikipedia's information on the legality of Private Servers

Legality
Please note disclaimer: Wikipedia does not give legal advice.

The legality or illegality of server emulators is a recurrent argument. There are several branches that are of concern:

Copyright
Reverse engineering
End User License Agreement (EULA)
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
Copyright and Reverse engineering: The first issue is a possible infringement of the game creators copyright. As the case of Lotus v. Borland demonstrates, recreating "methods of operation" is not a copyright infingement. Thus, emulating copyrighted material is not a breach. However, this demands that the complete emulator is a work of its own. Sometimes the original server software leaks out of the company that created the game, for example AEGIS (Ragnarok Online). Use or distribution of this is definitely a copyright infringement. Modified versions of such original server software are not considered to be server emulators. The protocol that is used for communiciation between server and client is not subject to copyright, in contrast it could theoretically be patented, whereas software patents is a disputed field also. There are cases where a game creator effectively shut down popular private game servers by threatening lawsuits due to obvious copyright violations such as offering the client for download, or offering downloads of modified files from the original game package.

End User License Agreement and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Another legal issue is the EULA. Today most commercial MMORPGs require the user to sign a clause not to create or use server emulators when installing the client he bought. As shown in the case of Bnetd Vivendi Universal v. Jung, the DMCA can be relied on as well if the lawsuit is in the United States — the DMCA is a US specific law, although there are similar laws in some other countries. They argued that server emulation requires the circumvention of copy protection. The server emulator company lost the suit and the bnetd.org domain was transferred to Blizzard.

[EnGunz]

to tell you the truth... its not legal.
But it's fun an its easy.

[sexy fire slash]

to tell you the truth... its not legal.
But it's fun an its easy.

Lol!!!! You took the words righj out of my mouth, it's illegal, but to tell you the truth I think of this way.. Copy Right is just a rule for do not steal or use in your own illegal way, but as i see it RULES ARE MENT TO BE BROKEN!
just my opinion.

[outlaw321]

What if you have a site and you dont make people pay but you earn from members doing surveys and by ads.. is that legal still? Dun wanna get nabbed by cops.

[xHalloweenX]

its illegal like TheivingSix said its all copyrighted but maiet isnt going to do anytinhg about it they are to small