Blizzard Entertainment, the developer of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, is filing a lawsuit against the owners of Turtle WoW, which is a group of servers housing a series of fan-developed mods and updates, including Mysteries of Azeroth.
As described on the Turtle WoW website, Mysteries of Azeroth is a “fan-made expansion story for World of Warcraft Vanilla that delves deeper into exploring the original lore of the game,” eschewing the changes to the original World of Warcraft that Blizzard introduced through The Burning Crusade expansion in 2007.
Players can access Mysteries of Azeroth by downloading the free client, with the developers accepting but not requiring donations.
In the lawsuit, filed Friday in the Central District of California, Blizzard Entertainment alleges that the developers of Turtle WoW are using Blizzard's artwork, trademarks, and official code.
A Blizzard spokesperson shared the following statement:
“Our games are built on decades of innovation and creativity, and we take seriously our responsibility to protect the integrity of that work for our employees, our partners, and our players. This pirate server illegally uses our code, assets, and trademarks to market an unprotected experience. Given the scale and nature of the infringement we need to pursue formal remedies to protect the world we’ve built.”
Given the scale and nature of the infringement we need to pursue formal remedies to protect the world we’ve built.
A Blizzard spokesperson
