I know they are against ToS, but I also know Blizzard can take legal action against them, and I was wondering how to submit a report to alert Blizzard to sites selling boosts for real-life currency. Thanks.
I don’t think you can.
In most cases, they can’t. That’s why so many of them are so blatant about it a lot of the time. The only thing Blizzard can do is to try to prevent their actions in-game and to take action in regards to their IP-rights and in-game decisions.
Basically unless a RMT-website breaks copyright law, that’s the only time that Blizzard can take legal action against them. It is possible to report them for stealing people’s private information that relate to things like credit cards, but then you need to have evidence for that. Especially since then you’d also be reporting this to the police or alternatively organizations such as the FBI.
Fair enough. I think I was conflating in my poor memory of Blizzard taking down big private servers for Copyright, now that you mention it. Oops.
Yeah, I figured this would be it.
Here’s a good thing to remember that might help: Blizzard may ban us for whatever reason that they want, but it doesn’t mean that it is illegal what we are doing - even if it breaks the ToS. But if an external website break the law then that is illegal and that’s when legal action is taken.
The reason private servers get taken down is usually not because of copyright issues per say, but because to protect their IP other companies cannot be allowed to make money using Blizzard’s IP. Because if they are allowed to do that, then Blizzard loses their rights to their own IP.
Private servers aren’t allowed, but they aren’t illegal, and it only becomes a legal issue once laws are involved. This goes for every website, every product, every game, every everything really. It requires usually extremely niche situations for some action online or in-game to become illegal, or it is blatantly illegal but folks do it anyways. Folks sending threats online is an example of this for an example - extremely illegal, but often not enforced.
Thiis phrasing made me chuckle. “It’s not illegal, until it is” is how I interpreted this. I know that’s an oversimplification and doesn’t work that way.
It was just funny to my smooth brain.
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on that same note are private servers reportable? i see one advertising on YT.
As others have said, there is a difference between breaking Blizzards terms and doing something illegal. One sort of borderline matter involved Blizzard suing a company that made botting software and actually getting a win. While it isn’t exactly using the company’s software to make money, Blizzard’s comments included that the Bots created by the specific company caused massive harm to Blizzard. Quote: “Blizzard’s business depends upon its games being enjoyable and balanced for players of all skill levels.”
While this happened sometime ago, its an interesting precedent set that a company can sue an outside group for taking separate action that is seen as detrimental to the company’s product. So I guess if they decided to act against a gold selling website (since it actually involves the company’s product - gold) it could also set a precedent. Depends on how much time and money they would be prepared to put into it.