Fake Minecraft server cracked down with police stepping in

The world-famous hit Swedish game, MINECRAFT, faced its infringement occurrence in Taiwan.  Two men, one surnamed Chu and the other, You, started to establish and run private servers in the name of “Taiwan Minecraft” two years ago, providing to unspecific players the decompiler program for Minecraft and even collecting membership fees.  Taiwan Minecraft was operated by maintaining more than 30 servers and 170,000 registered members.  The Criminal Investigation Brigade of the Second Special Police Corps initiated a raid action on the control room and computer facility of Taiwan Minecraft located in Taichung upon Minecraft’s report and further referred this matter to the relevant district prosecutors office for Copyright Act violation. 

The players of official Minecraft lashed out at Taiwan Minecraft for their running illegal servers for profit gaining purpose.  Minecraft had also issued cease and desist letters to the owners of Taiwan Minecraft, Chu and You who however ignored such letters.  Chu and You’s failure to cease their infringing activity finally caused Minecraft to file a complaint against them. 

After gathering relevant evidence against Taiwan Minecraft and successfully identifying the IP addresses of Taiwan Minecraft’s servers, the police initiated a raid action on Taiwan Minecraft’s control room and facility located in an apartment in Taichung, Taiwan, successfully seizing 32 servers, uninterruptable power system, and Internet sharing device.  The police had completed examination on these seized equipment and facilities, finding the reproduced and decoded programs, players records, transaction records stored therein.  It was a surprising finding that Chu and You had made munificent earnings from such illegal activity to cover their monthly expenses in an amount of almost TWD200,000 for personnel matters and fixed expenses to maintain the operation of the servers and deal with members’ disputes.  (October 2016)  

/CCS