Could Blizzard be taking legal action?

[thikr]

Burning WoW, a very popular private server was shut down recently...

Burning WoW Has Now Been Shutdown
5th December 2008 We are sad to inform all the community here that we have been served with a DMCA notice and will be ceasing operation of the servers effective immediately.

As some of you may of noticed, a handful of other private servers have also been hit with this notice, so it is not just us and it is widespread. So far it seems isolated to the hosting provider being used by us and those other servers, but other servers may end up receiving the same notice as well.

We are not taking any chances and are going to be cooperative in this time, and will proceed with taking down all our WoW gaming realms. At this stage we have no intention of reviving the servers, as that would be potentially violating the conditions of the DMCA.

For donaters, if you donated just recently and haven't got your reward, contact us about it and we will look at refunding your money. Same will go for very recent donaters. Any longer standing donaters, sorry we will not be refunding that money as you have been using those rewards, and our donation terms clearly state we do not offer refunds, however in exceptional circumstances we will for a very limited range of people.

Sad to see things end this way and so quick, but it has to be done.

We will try to keep at least a main website up and possibly forums aswell running for the time being so you all can stay informed on the situation as it unfolds, and we will try to let everyone know if there are some changes.

For now, its time to say goodbye....

Take care and best wishes.

Apparently this DMCA business isn't a singular case nor is it well confined, I looked up a little on the DMCA...

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works and it also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998 by a unanimous vote in the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of on-line services for copyright infringement by their users.

Hrm... I guess they could do it if they wanted right? Discuss please...

[Rollet]

Burning wow got shut down like a month ago and a few Gm's from B wow opened up a server called Pheonix wow that you can transfer you B wow account to although all your gear and money will be gone

[thikr]

Burning wow got shut down like a month ago and a few Gm's from B wow opened up a server called Pheonix wow that you can transfer you B wow account to although all your gear and money will be gone

B Wow wasn't my concern, the private server world in general was more what I was fearful for...

[Clain]

This is old news... use search please.

[K A K A]

Yah ^^ ......

[thikr]

This is old news... use search please.

Ok, so what is your opinion exactly?

[EcHoEs]

Recently? 4 months ago. Old news, there was a big thread about this in Emulator discussion.

[Fenderbender]

Well it was only a matter of time before this was gonna happen.