ESA bafflingly declares private Minecraft servers 'illegal'
www.pcgamer.com
Catch me on the corner selling server.jar out of a long trenchcoat.

People don’t even want you to play a video game in private now.

"Gibbons cut in: “They’re illegal. They are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft, for Minecraft, has gotten a lot of criticism because of those community servers not employing the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers.”

  • Cris_Citrus@piefed.zipEnglish
    22·
    7 hours ago

    People really ought to be held legally accountable for explicitly lying in situations like this. Lying to legislators should be illegal just like lying to the courts is purjury

  • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
    83·
    13 hours ago

    […] and just to clear this up right away: what she said was nonsense. You can, literally right now, head over to the official Minecraft website and download a .jar file to let you run your own private server.

    I love how confidently stupid and wrong she was here.

    What I fucking hate is this pattern of attacks on open source and self-hosting we’ve been seeing. Anthropic’s CEO saying that open source self-hosted LLMs are “dangerous” for example.

    • SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zone
      2·
      4 hours ago

      Nice LLM you have there. Be a real shame if one that costs 1/10 the price (and another that can run on a consumer rig self hosted) could outperform it.

    • strawberry_enjoyer42@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      61·
      6 hours ago

      It’s not just open source and self-hosting. They’re going after Steam because they actually treat their customers well. Despite still not truly owning your games on their, you basically do. As long as Steam is good, gamers won’t forget that services can be good, and we can’t have that, can we?

    • osanna@lemmy.vgEnglish
      21·
      5 hours ago

      Oh but they are VERY dangerous. Dangerous for the 1%’s wealth. What will they do if they have to downsize their billion dollar yachts???

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        3·
        5 hours ago

        But the thing is? They’re not. Billionaires would still be billionaires without attacking open source and self hosting.

        The problem is that billionaires are hungry ghosts. It’s not enough to be fabulously wealthy, they just want more. Forever.

    • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
      111·
      9 hours ago

      Yes. This is a classic case of a large company buying an open source product that was specifically designed to get children to be creative and build their own worlds and then deciding that such usage is illegal unless you pay loads of money.

      A perfect snapshot of enshitification.

    • StumblingWasabi@lemmy.today
      20·
      5 hours ago

      Open source LLMs are very dangerous for their bottom line, they have all the same problems as non open source LLMs and the shareholders don’t even make money off of them!

  • jeinzi@discuss.tchncs.de
    151·
    14 hours ago

    For a moment I was so confused as to why the European Space Agency is attacking Minecraft servers.

  • Otter@lemmy.ca
    9·
    13 hours ago

    You would think that an organization like this would have a better understanding than the average person

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Software_Association

    The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is the trade association of the video game industry in the United States. It was formed in April 1994 as the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA)[1] and renamed on July 21, 2003. It is based in Washington, D.C.[2][3] Most of the top publishers in the video game industry (or their American subsidiaries) are members of the ESA.

    • grue@lemmy.world
      17·
      12 hours ago

      They “understand” just fine. They’re trying to normalize the destruction of property rights on purpose because they absolutely loathe the idea of anyone not continuously paying them rentier fees for absolutely nothing in return.

      They are evil and must be destroyed.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
        4·
        9 hours ago

        That’s fine. If property rights don’t exist then there’s no legal basis to charge us with anything if we burn their houses and businesses down. We just need to make sure they’re unoccupied at the time.

  • PapaSkwat@lemmy.today
    211·
    13 hours ago

    I thought only kids played minecraft. Are there really still that many adults playing a children’s game?

      • Voxel@feddit.org
        110·
        13 hours ago

        It is about the ESA misunderstanding Microsoft’s and Mojang’s license agreement, nothing more.

        • Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.worldOP
          82·
          13 hours ago

          It still belongs in privacy. It’s about trying to stop private game servers. That is going against privacy! Learn the word!

          • Voxel@feddit.org
            19·
            13 hours ago

            So in your definition a private company has to do with privacy? I recommend you take a dictionary and follow your own advice.

            • Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.worldOP
              41·
              13 hours ago

              Dude are you not reading any of the comments towards you? You are completely wrong. You set up your own private server to be private! Take your own advice. Apparently you have no idea what the definition is.

    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
      61·
      13 hours ago

      Minecraft has chat control enabled by default where any player can report another, have the chat send to Microsoft after which they (or an ai) can decide to ban you from accessing any servers at all.

      Private servers are the only way to block that and create a chat that is safe to use (ironically)

      This is absolutely about privacy.

      • Voxel@feddit.org
        05·
        13 hours ago

        Minecraft has chat control enabled by default (…)

        What chat control are you talking about?

        Private servers are the only way to block that and create a chat that is safe to use (ironically)

        You shouldn’t be talking about private content in Minecraft at all, as the chat is inherently insecure. Private server or not.

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
          31·
          13 hours ago

          The one where any random player can report another for any reason and have a portion of the chatlog (without consent of any others) send to Microsoft.

          For reference i have some members on my adult server who like to joke sell sugar as cocaine. There is no info on what actually counts to ban-able, it might just be ai that decides at this point.

          Also there used to be secret library Minecraft servers in china with banned books and thats why there is a separate chinese Minecraft edition now with social media features and all players are identified with all chats monitored.

          “Just don’t type anything private” is not an argument i expect seeing on a privacy community either. Sounds a lot like “if you have nothing to hide”

            • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
              31·
              12 hours ago

              The official Minecraft website has an article about a public, private server run by reporters without borders.

              https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/uncensored-library

              https://www.uncensoredlibrary.com/en

              For obvious reasons many copies of this server And predecessors that existed/may operate within oppressive areas do not advertise their existence online.

              Wiki entry of minecraft china edition.

              https://minecraft.wiki/w/China_Edition

              Tap for spoiler

              • Free to download

                • Valid Chinese citizen ID required to play

              • Friends system, with live text chat support

                • Text content in-game may be moderated, such as chat, Book and Quills, Written Books, Signs, Command Blocks, renamed items (via Anvils) and mobs (via renamed Spawn Eggs or Name Tags)
                • Moderation is also applied to in-launcher content, such as community posts, comments on contents, and private messages. Rental servers and virtual LAN games are not allowed to have names altogether, instead being referred to by a numerical ID

              The argument about minecraft chat being inherently insecure is a straw-man at best. A private server, whitelisted for my own household that runs on hardware that i own is just as secure as any other speech that happens in my living room.

              There is no reason for microsoft to have the ability to steal logs to moderate it. And this is why almost every respectable server i know uses plugins to block that shit.

        • All Ice In Chains@lemmy.ml
          4·
          12 hours ago

          I’m not gonna call bullshit on them for having a shitty website, lots of IT people are too lazy to make a good website; hell the entire open source ecosystem runs on IT people with shitty websites.

          I’ll call bullshit on them by invoking Hitchens’ Razor on their argument: What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. This is extra ironic considering Hitchens’ many unsubstantiated criticisms of socialism.