Minecraft, Call Of Duty Community Servers Are “Illegal,” Claims ESA Rep

The Protect Our Games Act --a piece of legislation endorsed by the Stop Killing Games movement--has been voted down at the California State Senate. However, one of the most noteworthy incidents from this legislative battle was a comment made by an Entertainment Software Association lobbyist who claimed that Minecraft and Call of Duty private community servers are "illegal." Jennifer Gibbons, the ESA's vice president of state government affairs, told lawmakers that community servers for Minecraft and Call of Duty games are both breaking the law. "They’re illegal," said Gibbons. two pending lawsuits against private servers right now, and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in their Notorious Markets Reports on counterfeiting and piracy has named some of these big private servers as a notorious market." As PC Gamer and Video Games Chronicle have noted, Gibbons has apparently conflated community-run servers with the ones actually targeted by the USTR for allowing players to circumvent subscription fees.