Blizzard Entertainment has filed a federal lawsuit targeting Turtle WoW, one of the most prominent private World of Warcraft servers, alleging a broad range of intellectual property violations and unlawful business practices.
Newsweek contacted Blizzard and Turtle WoW for more information via email outside of normal working hours.
Why It Matters
The suit represents a major escalation in Blizzard’s ongoing effort to clamp down on unofficial servers that replicate or modify the experience of its blockbuster game, World of Warcraft. Turtle WoW, which has built a large player base by modifying the original 2004 version of the game with fan-created expansions, races, events and zones, now faces the threat of a permanent shutdown and possible financial penalties.
What To Know
The lawsuit, filed August 29 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, accuses Turtle WoW of infringing copyrights, violating trademarks, circumventing anti-piracy protections, and operating as a racketeering enterprise.
According to Blizzard’s complaint, Turtle WoW devalues the official World of Warcraft brand and monetizes unlicensed content in violation of U.S. law.
The company asserts that fan-made projects like Turtle WoW’s Mysteries of Azeroth expansion and its upcoming Turtle WoW 2.0″ project, which intends to recreate WoW in Unreal Engine 5, directly threaten its commercial interests.
In court documents explaining the case, Blizzard’s legal team said: “The defendants in this action have built an entire business on large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement of Blizzard’s intellectual property.
“Through Turtle WoW, defendants have found a lucrative way to exploit and profit from the popularity of the WoW game experience.
“Specifically, Turtle WoW purports to offer to the public paid access to a group of unauthorized, ’emulated’ private WoW game servers, as well as all of the software and other tools necessary to access and use these emulated servers, including pirated copies of WoW that have been specially modified to work with its unauthorized servers.”
The complaint seeks an injunction to shut down Turtle WoW and monetary damages. It names several individuals involved in running the private server, including Yulia “Torta/Shenna” Savko, a Russian national alleged to be the project’s lead developer and operator.
What People Are Saying
Blizzard’s legal team said in the filing: “Recently, Turtle WoW has been brazenly escalating its efforts to cannibalize and disrupt Blizzard’s WoW player community by, for example, increasing its social media presence, partnering with video game influencers, and actively promoting a new version of its infringing game.
“Defendants have infringed Blizzard’s copyrights and trademarks, assisted and encouraged others to infringe Blizzard’s copyrights, trafficked in devices that circumvent Blizzard’s access control measures, and induced hundreds of thousands of users to breach contracts that they entered into with Blizzard.”
What Happens Next
Legal proceedings will now determine whether the court issues an injunction and awards damages to Blizzard. The case could also serve as a precedent for future litigation against similar private servers, especially those operating outside the U.S. or in a gray area of international copyright enforcement.
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