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Who's Next?
In honor of the latest private server to be sued by Nexon, we’ve decided to host an event for all you private server lovers out there.
They warned you but you wouldn’t listen! You mocked them, harassed them, and thought they were bluffing! No more warnings! The party’s over! The time for threats is over! Nexon is on a suing rampage!
It’s up to you! OdinMS, KryptoDEV, and DestinyMS have already been taken down. Guess who’s next on the chopping block by filling out the comment form with your choice. The submission of any information (real name, contact information, etc.) for the private server owners will help your chances of winning!
We won’t reveal the grand prize just yet…but you won’t be disappointed.
DestinyMS Closes
Only days after announcing they were being sued by Nexon for violating their intellectual property by running their private server, DestinyMS administrator and owner Duncan (known as Shadow on their website) has announced that DestinyMS will be closing permanently. An announcement was posted on their website today.
It has come to our attention that operating a public private MapleStory server breaks Nexon’s intellectual property. Due to this, we have shut down our server permanently. We have removed any links to material that allow you to play on our server. We call to anyone who has downloaded the offending material to immediately remove this from your computer, as it violates Nexon’s intellectual property.
For more information, please visit the RPM forums or our IRC channel. You may also want to read the forum thread.
Special thanks to anyone out there who has contributed or otherwise assisted in the operation of this project over the past two years.
Best wishes,
The DestinyMS Team
In a post on their forums Duncan boasts (or at least that’s what we can decipher) about how DestinyMS has “reached a lot of our goals” and “made a history out of ourselfs”. Here is the post in it’s entirety…grammatical errors and all.
After much consideration and possible solutions or ways out.
Me and my lawyer have came to the conclusion that fighting for DMS will not be worth it.Winning the case is still a big chance, but we can in no way help players download the DestinyMS.exe patch to play on our server, thus not gaining any players.
With the US working on new internet laws to expand the current DMCA, Nexon will get us blacklisted and we will lose all our american players and possibly our asian players too (as Asia is connected to europe through the US).
And last but not least, Europe is working on its own DMCA version, which will take down DMS not to long from now.To stop the case and safe everyone allot of effort, we have decided to shut down DestinyMS.
The chat and forums will stay up, so enjoy sticking around, as many people have met eachother here and became friends… even several relationships started at DMS. And we do not want to take the community away from you all.
I will personally like to thank everyone who has helped and worked with DestinyMS. We have reached allot of goals and made a history out of ourselfs. In the world of MapleStory, DestinyMS will never be forgotten. To everyone who has enjoyed DestinyMS, we also will not be forgotten.
Our legacy lives on.
Regards,
Shadow
DestinyMS’ legacy will not live on but it will surely be remembered as the second server that was sued by Nexon and again remind private server owners that no matter where you are or what you say, Nexon will find you and take you down.
Nexon Sues DestinyMS
After months of warnings DestinyMS has now been officially sued by Nexon. A source confirmed that a law firm in the Netherlands is acting on behalf of Nexon in the lawsuit and asserts that Nexon is very confident in its case against Shadow’s crumbling empire that is DestinyMS.
Shadow had this to say on the RPM-Productions forum:
So after more then 2 years. Nexon has finally followed up their threats and actually sued me for real.
The court session will commence the 22nd of November.
They are demanding:
-The complete deletion of anything from DMS.
-That i owe Nexon any profit that has been made (a negative amount of at least 2000 euro, give or take) double negative is a positive, so i guess im getting at least 2 grand.
-A 10.000 euro fine.
-An email to everyone that has ever played DMS showing our defeat.
-Personal information for anyone listed on the team information page on DMS (Good thing we have ‘the right to remain silened, plus i dont know anyone’s personal information except a few first names, which are already known).
-That im liable for any costs of the entire procedure of court.Good thing they have allot of missinformation and false information in the documents that I’ve received.
I wish them good luck and will see them in court the 22nd of November.
Regards,
Shadow.
We have yet to get a reply on our request from DestinyMS for a comment.
Interesting facts:
-DestinyMS was one of the most popular low-rate MapleStory private server in 2008 and 2009.
-DestinyMS is the second MapleStory private server to be sued by Nexon Corporation, the first being OdinMS
The End Of Private Servers?
Summer 2010 is upon us and Maple-News is about to embark on its 3rd year online. In this post we will take a look at MapleStory private servers in the past two years.
OdinMS – The Beginning
OdinMS started it all and in a way successfully sealed the fate of private servers. On June 16, 2008 NEXON filed a lawsuit against OdinMS for 350,000 euros (over $500,000). Over 2 years later a once thriving private server community has been decimated by relentless attacks by NEXON Korea and NEXON America closing dozens of servers, development forums, and ranking websites. Without a constantly updated source coders and sites took up the cause but never to the extent of OdinMS. It was the beginning of the end for private servers.
FlowsionMS, TitanMS, FinalStory
These servers held up the crux of OdinMS by offering reasonable rates, good development teams, and regular updates. They too did not last long but understood and respected the creation of the game and selectively respected the copyrights.
A Mass of Servers and DestinyMS’ Last Stand
With a growing private server community and development websites like RaGEZONE and KryptoDEV 2009 proved promising for private server loyalists. Even if you weren’t a coder or very experienced with a little money and a few friends you could make your own server…running it off your own computer using a CMS and pre-made scripts. Online communities like RaGEZONE and KryptoDEV fueled the fire giving large resources to people interested in creating their own server.
This didn’t last long as NEXON America’s Lloyd Korn along with NEXON Korea’s law firms began sending Cease and Desists and DMCA notices by the masses shutting server after server down and finally playing hardball, threatening lawsuits if owners did not shut down their server. DestinyMS, a server based in the Netherlands, was the first to stand up to NEXON. Refusing to shut down arguing they had lawyers swearing their server was legal and that NEXON could not touch them for months DestinyMS fought NEXON. It became harder and harder as fewer people were willing to take the risk and with the combination of increased updates in MapleGlobal and MapleSEA the need for private servers decreased. DestinyMS remained online sporadically but quickly faded away.
The End
With NEXON America and NEXON Korea coordinating their efforts more closely private servers began to take a beating. Ranking websites cringed at the hands of NEXON and slowly server after server faded away. Increased updates in MapleGlobal and MapleSEA made it difficult for private servers to continue updating and interest quickly faded. The “top 10″ servers either closed down or became only a shadow of what they once were. Development sites like KryptoDEV, who despite their efforts to resist NEXON, closed. Although there are still servers online, most are shoddily designed and fail to reach above 100 users online consecutively and are nothing compared to the original top servers. Private server users will argue it is not over while Nexon will argue that it is. What can be plainly seen is that the official versions of MapleStory are doing better than ever while private servers have become flies obsessed with the light only to get zapped the closer they go. Private servers are known to come back when everything thinks they’re out but can they do it again? NEXON has won the battle, but have they won the war?
What do YOU think? Tell us in the comments!
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ALERT: January OdinMS Update!
On January 25th the OdinMS creators made the first update in almost a year on their website. Read it below.
Update (01/25/10): After a period of silence something is happening again. We received a bill of indictment from the public prosecutor. Therein we are accused of having illegally copied, distributed or broadcasted a work without the agreement of the holder of rights. The contained report of the facts of the case is in our opinion quite dubious to say the least.
A Korean attestor is named to have prepared an incriminating expertise for which he seemingly was granted access to all of our confiscated data.
Our lawyers will now again request access to the records so we can review the actual evidence (including the expertise of the Korean guy) and decide if we want to name any other attestors or request hearing of evidences.
The lawsuit takes place at the juvenile court (since one of us is still younger than 21) of the Amtsgericht Neunkirchen which is the lowest level court possible in Germany.
(Please note: Contrary to all rumors this marks the beginning of the first lawsuit against us. Everything that happened before was just part of preliminary proceedings. There has been no kind of judgment so far.)
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We will keep you posted if any new information arises.
