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Private servers are NOT illegal. Just like how downloading music and movies off the net isn't illegal.

The only way it can be illegal is if the hoster of the server wants people to pay HIM in order to play on that server. Same with music downloading. As long as I don't sell burned CDs to people, there's nothing wrong with it.

Actually, according to the courts, downloading music is illegal which is why it's hard for a web page owner to get a webpage and places like napster and other peer-to-peer programs get shut down. Not to mention it's why poor people on campus at my college get busted if they're caught sharing music or movies cuz there's a law here in California or something that says if they do it on a school connection, they'll get caught. The idea behind the whole thing is that by getting music for free instead of buying the CDs, artists are losing money. Although, that argument isn't actually solid. There may be some who would rather just get the mp3, but they don't account for the people who go out and buy the CDs because they've tried and tested their music. =/ So that one's a tough argument.

P.servers however:



The spirit behind this law is that it's like intellectual theft because it's code that's copyrighted by Gravity, so it's someone using copyrighted material without permission (even for free). The same kind of thing applies technically if you try to show a movie in a public place even for free because they're only supposed to be used for personal uses in a home or for rent or something like that or even using stuff you research in your paper. It's all copyright. For citing sources though, generally if you put them in your bibliography, you're good. But for other mediums, the companies that produce them usually don't want them to be distributed freely the same as how some web page owners don't want their images distributed freely. That in itself is also called image theft when someone uses your images on their site without asking you for permission first, and legally, you *can* sue them or you *can* ask their host to shut their web page down. It's kind of for this reason too, that a lot of pages try to limit what they post about works by CLAMP because they don't like seeing their artwork scanned and put online. People will still probably buy their manga and everything, but CLAMP feels hurt by their art being spread online and feel that it is "theft" or something to that extent. I realize these ideas are kind of abstract, but I'm hoping with these examples, you can apply it to private servers and kind of see why Gravity is opposed to them even if they are free.

Very wonderful explanation, Yilei. 3nodding

I dunno what the mod's idea of a punishment for that would be, but generally it's probably not a good idea. I've seen people talk about things that they've done or just amusing idiosyncrasies of the game, but in those cases they carefully neglect mentioning that it's from a p.server just to share something for fun. I think seems to be okay, but I'm not sure. I'd wait on Baph or someone else explaining better.

Well, I guess since we don't have like, set rules, I kinda just use the RO forum rules. o_ob So basically you can like, talk about P. Servers and stuff as long as you're not advertising. 3nodding