[Question] Non-public Private Server

[Confusedkid]

First and foremost I'd like to apologize if I am restating a question previously asked, I'm somewhat new to the forums and not entirely sure how effectively use them. I've recently quit playing wow (after 4 yrs) cause of money issues, but I'm essentially addicted to it, and I came across private servers. My question is: If i create a private server for personal use only...no intention whatsoever on making it public...is it still illegal? I read something about sandbox servers and how in some cases they are okay(for Machinima). And if they are illegal what is the chances of getting caught if i never go on the live servers anymore? I'm questioning whether or not is legal because there are so many servers advertised, and I think the illegal ones are those who are either making a profit or has too many people. Thanks in advance for your response.

[The-Eradicator]

Private servers are a gray area, they're not actually illegal (though you probably could be taken to court over it).

Blizzard won't care unless you're like WoWScape (pulling in $500,000.00 USD every year), or you have at least a thousand players (and even then I doubt they care much). Even so, they would just send you a DMCA take-down notice, and provided you shut down your server, they wouldn't come after you.

[Confusedkid]

Thanks The-Eradicator, i was getting a bit stressed about it, if i do get a message im more than happy to take it down, i just want to kill this urge of playing wow again.

[Kiev]

And aslong as you keep it non-public, they have no way to find you Even if you do connect to blizzard realms, they cant see if you have a server on your computer, there are quite a few servers that have gotten DMCA notices, but they choose to ignore them, nothing happens unless they grow too large after it. They wont do nothing to you