"Since earliest days of computer games, people have tinkered with the software to customize their own experiences or share their vision with others. From the dad who changed the game's male protagonist to a girl so his daughter could see herself in it, to the developers who got their start in modding, games have been a medium where you don't just consume a product, you participate and interact with culture."
"For decades, that participatory experience was a key part of one of the longest-running video games still in operation: Everquest. Players had the official client, acquired lawfully from EverQuest's developers, and modders figured out how to enable those clients to communicate with their own servers and then modify their play experience - creating new communities along the way. Everquest's copyright owners implicitly blessed all this. But the current owners, a private equity firm called Daybreak, want to end that independent creativity."
"They are using copyright claims to threaten modders who wanted to customize the EverQuest experience to suit a different playstyle, running their own servers where things worked the way they wanted. One project in particular is in Daybreak's crosshairs: "The Hero's Journey" (THJ). Daybreak claims THJ has infringed its copyrights in Everquest visuals and character, cutting into its bottom line."
"Ordinarily, when a company wants to remedy some actual harm, its lawyers will start with a cease-and-desist letter and potentially pursue a settlement. But if the goal is intimidation, a rightsholder is free to go directly to federal court and file a complaint. That's exactly what Daybreak did, using that shock-and-awe approach to cow not only The Hero's Journey team, but unrelated modders as well."
Players have long modified games to customize experiences and build communities, using official clients to connect to independent servers. EverQuest modding enabled players to run alternative servers and shape gameplay, a practice that was previously tolerated. Daybreak, the current owner, now asserts copyright claims against modders and targeted The Hero's Journey project for alleged infringement of visuals and character elements, claiming revenue harm. Daybreak filed a federal complaint without first pursuing cease-and-desist negotiations, deploying an intimidation-based legal strategy that has affected both the targeted team and unrelated modders. The complaint presented side-by-side images to the judge without explaining contextual details.
Read at Electronic Frontier Foundation
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