Disney: If We Can't Run Club Penguin, No One Can Run Club Penguin [Updated]
from the you're-a-grinch,-disney dept
Update: As an update, a bunch of folks left comments suggesting that this action was fine because the guy running this Club Penguin server was recently arrested on suspicion of child porn, and that this particular server also allowed “racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and sexual messages flow freely.” Those are certainly reasons to be concerned about this server, but they are not issues that you deal with via copyright. If it’s reasonable to go after the people who set up the site for criminal activity, go after them for that. Copyright should not be the tool.
Disney’s overly aggressive copyright bullying strikes again. Apparently, Disney has decided that if Disney can’t run Club Penguin in a way that people want to use it, then no one should be able to run Club Penguin, and so the company has used the DMCA to takedown a fan server.
If you somehow missed it, Club Penguin was a hugely popular virtual world in which players as cartoon penguins would hang out and interact. It was targeted at the younger set (age 6 to 14) and at one point had over 200 million users. In 2007, Disney bought the site for $350 million. Over the years, through neglect and the general evolution of what kids think is cool, Club Penguin languished and Disney shut it down in 2017. While Disney then tried to capitalize on the name with an entirely different virtual world called Club Penguin Island, folks who loved Club Penguin were not impressed and Disney quietly shuttered that as well.
Some fans still liked the original Club Penguin, and were able to build up unlicensed fan servers recreating the original game. And for a while now Disney had mostly looked the other direction (or perhaps its lawyers were busy gobbling up every other major piece of pop culture). However, now with everyone on pandemic lockdown, the most popular of the unlicensed fan servers, Club Penguin Online, was getting a big usage boost and Disney could not allow that to happen. They sent off a DMCA notice demanding the site be disappeared:
This is an unauthorized version of the Club Penguin game and contains infringing copyrighted content including but not limited to software and artwork.
The folks behind Club Penguin Online decided that they didn’t want to deal with a legal mess and appeared to have just shut down the entire thing in response.
Of course, this should raise all sorts of questions. What “harm” was Club Penguin Online doing to Disney in the first place? They had abandoned their own version (and even the weaker followup). There is no competition. It’s not like there’s the Disney version that this is taking away from. Even more to the point, this highlights some of the many concerns people have had about other online virtual worlds and MMOs, and how those experiences can or should be archived.
But just for a cultural level the whole thing is absurd (and so very, very Disney). These are people who want to celebrate an important part of culture, at a time when a lot of people are looking back nostalgically at things we did in the past. And Disney and its lawyers have to jump in and say “NO! You cannot do that.” All because it feels the need to “own” culture. What a shame. What a loss.
Filed Under: club penguin, club penguin online, copyright, dmca, takedowns, unlicensed servers
Companies: disney
Comments on “Disney: If We Can't Run Club Penguin, No One Can Run Club Penguin [Updated]”
If we were crazy, I mean a Federal agency (we’re not I hope), we’d probably label Disney as cultural terrorists.
Cute mouse; ugly company...
Disney has become the kind of company that Walt would have abhorred. The company clearly employs too many lawyers who apparently have too little to do. Dropping a rock on a roadrunner was funny; dropping a DMCA on some online fun that costs Disney nothing is just (honk, honk) bullying.
Re: Cute mouse; ugly company...
"Disney has become the kind of company that Walt would have abhorred."
You obviously know very little about the moral wreck which was the abusive, twisted caricature of a human which was Walt Disney.
Walt was known for bullying his workers, his family, had to be held back from physically assaulting union picketers…and was the one and only hollywood celebrity to welcome Leni Riefenstahl – an official nazi spokeswoman – in 1938. Which should come as no surprise given his repeated attendance at the meetings of the American Nazi Party.
The early movies he directed – Snow White, the Jungle book, etc – can be measured literally in the misery of underpaid animators regularly threatened with blacklisting and worse if they didn’t shut the fsck up and draw at slave salaries.
Re: Re: Cute mouse; ugly company...
So, not much has changed.
Re: Re: Cute mouse; ugly company...
You mean the guy whose go-to reference for Disney is Roadrunner cartoons doesn’t know very much about Disney?
Re: Cute mouse; ugly company...
Yeah, and shutting down a site run by a sex offender cost nothing but some young’s people nudes to be leaked to multiple people into a private group.
It must only be me to think its twisted.
Ah that cultural growth...
Yup, stomping out an unofficial version of a site that had been shut down certainly enriches culture, good thing we’ve got copyright for that sort of thing.
Go-Fund-Me time
~200 million? At 50c/each Mike could take on killing Disney’s expired IP, be a rich man & have 200 million little loving groupies
Re: Go-Fund-Me time
Yeah; I was imagining replacing "Club Penguin Online" with "Club Mouse Online" and re-use the Steamboat Willie Mickey graphics as the model.
Perfectly legal, in no way infringing.
Re: Re: Go-Fund-Me time
…or, how about Club Baby Seal Online?
Re: Re: Re: Go-Fund-Me time
Club Baby Shark?
Disney full time shit streamer
Their stream should be named Disney-, for truth in advertising.
It’s too bad that that all licensing doesn’t fall back to the original creator when an IP house like Disney abandons what they have bought / licensed.
Headline Typo
Disney can’t RUIN Club Penguin, so no one can!
There, fixed that headline for ya…
What is the first rule of Penguin Club?
Re: Re:
You don’t talk about fight club?
Hmmmmmmm
There’s a whole layer to this story that you’re leaving out, or are possibly unaware of: this is FAR from just some monopolist crackdown on the part of Disney – I don’t think they ever would have taken action if there wasn’t so much controversy around the Club Penguin Online site (referred to as CPO).
It’s been documented for quite some time that the owner of CPO (Riley, or Anthony? I think he goes by different names) is a doxxer, abuser, and likely a pedophile. Only since the quarantine, and the game’s newfound popularity, was this brought to light to such a degree that Disney couldn’t ignore it anymore. The BBC reported that someone in connection to the game (almost certainly him) was arrested and released on bail this week.
These private servers have existed for years without Disney caring – and they’ve been well aware of them. But with the increasingly explicit content and potential that the creators of these private servers may be drawing children in for their own sinister purpose gave them no choice in the matter – if they didn’t take action, they might be perceived as negligent to stopping child abuse.
Re:
I cannot believe people never do research into this stuff before making the argument!CPO was a risk to everyone and anyone they denied account deletions because they wanna store data and passwords they have a pedo owner but people are blaming disney on this what has this world come to man
Re: Re: Re:
Right. So the legal resoltion to stopping child abuse and other bad things is… copyright.
This is the most stupid argument ever, and merely covers the ineptitude and lack of any actual care of the for-the-children crowd, be they law enforcement or not.
Allegations
I suggest you look into Club Penguin Online some more.
There are serious allegations about the owner hiring hackers to hack and dox several people who try to spread any sort of negative press about CPO and there are known reports of the owner being racist, homophobic and possibly possessing child abuse imagery on his computer. Essentially, the people behind it are awful people and a little research would show you that. It needed taking down or Disney would have that possibly coming back to associate them with criminal acts and general antisocial behaviour.
Well, it had to be shut down. The site was monitored by a man who had child pornorgraphy and there were racist and anti-Semitic messages all over the place. If whoever was in charge did such a poor job of regulating content, it’s easy to see why Disney would have the site shut down
if you actually did your research you’d know that club penguin private servers do more harm than good. the owner of CPO was a person that targeted minors and made mature servers on the game despite advertising it as a "remake of disney’s classic" and a "virtual world for kids." The creator and the mods doxxed people. He was arrested rightfully, and not just for copyright. Do your homework next time, dummy.
Re: Re:
If the owner of the website was a PoS, then of course the infringement itself has to be shut down by copyright. If the copyright lawyer is a Richard Liebowitz, an insult to the term PoS, then the infringement is allowed to continue.
Turnabout is fair play, after all./
If the real reason the one site was targeted is the operator’s alleged bad actions, maybe the other sites will be allowed to keep operating sans DMCA notice.
The owner was a pedo
Do you want to report on things correctly?
These sites were operating for ages, why shut them down now?
Because CP Online is literally owned by a pedo. Disney might not be a good company but this is ignoring the fact that more people came out against the owner, and people couldn’t ignore the already present allegations.
So I’m glad they shut it down, it’s disappointing they shut them all down, but at least that way kids are garenteed to be safe.
Shit article, this website is dog shit, update your CSS god damn. Do some proper investigations before you write stuff.
The owner was a pedo
Do you want to report on things correctly?
These sites were operating for ages, why shut them down now?
Because CP Online is literally owned by a pedo. Disney might not be a good company but this is ignoring the fact that more people came out against the owner, and people couldn’t ignore the already present allegations.
So I’m glad they shut it down, it’s disappointing they shut them all down, but at least that way kids are garenteed to be safe.
Shit article, this website is dog shit, update your CSS god damn. Do some proper investigations before you write stuff.
Re: The owner was a pedo
Thank you! I have been seeing comments about how Disney sucks and they ruined Club Penguin, but the thing is, they has some serious allegations piled up against them, from a former admin, and have even gone as far as hacking a YouTuber’s Snapchat 2 years back. If you had done 10 minutes of research for your article, you would see they were not shutting down a server because they are malicious, but because of things that were said against them, that turned out to be true, and because of copyright.
Re: Re:
And they shut it down using copyright law rather than, y’know, laws meant to deal with full-bore criminal activities. That should frighten you.
Update added
We’ve added an update about questions raised about the people running the site. There are serious allegations about them, but the proper way to address those is via law enforcement, not a misguided copyright claim.
Re: Update added
Of course, a copyright claim can take the place of law enforcement for shutting down illegal or just controversial operations. But doing so actually sets a dangerous precedent
Re: Update added
Hello, Mr Masnick. 🙂
As much as it pains me, I have to side with Disney here (lord, my brain feels dirty just typing those words – and not in a good way).
Consider this from Disney’s perspective:
• All the indications are that there’s a site using your good name to probably operate as a paedophile grooming tool targeting children. If you don’t do anything, you’re potentially liable in the civil courts for millions in damages, for tolerating abuse of one sort or another;
• The "proper channels" are the police, FBI and DoJ, who may take literally years to actually do anything, if they do anything at all – and "anything" here seems less than entirely likely, given that they’ve already done nothing about the site, even after arresting the owner;
• That’s without going into the whole FOSTA / SESTA thing, with the authorities infamously ignoring actual widespread abuse, in favour of attacking easier and more PR-friendly targets like Craigslist, et al;
• The courts are notably hostile to anything resembling prior restraint, sometimes even where convicted paedophiles are involved – appeals might keep the site online for years, even after a major win by the state;
• Regardless of what "should" be, the only tools you really have for taking the site down, quickly and more-or-less reliably, are copyright and trademark law.
I think asking Disney to put their faith in the authorities is like asking whistleblowers to keep quiet and let their bosses handle it. I can wish for things to go a certain way, but that’s almost-certainly not going to do anything good in practise.
Sometimes, pragmatism has to come first.
Re: Re: Update added
This is trying to set a dangerous precedent, allowing the copyright industry to become vigilantes policing the Internet.
Re: Re: Re: Update added
Don’t they already?
Re: Re: Police everywhere support that comment
Congrats, you just pulled out the same excuse that police and other government agencies around the world use to violate rights and bend/break the law: It’s too hard/takes too long/takes too much work to do to it right/legally.
Re: Re: Re: Police everywhere support that comment
Hello, T.O.G. 🙂
"You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler, that’s who!"
As arguments go, it’s not up to much. I’m no fan of Disney, but I’m really struggling to see a side to this incident that even begins to make them look bad.
In the same situation, with my commercial name and reputation being dragged right into the shit the same way, I’m fairly sure I’d do the same thing as Disney, if I had the power. Outside of making a point for free speech, I think most people would, any number of TD commenters included.
If somebody cloned your work and used it as a platform for promoting racial, religious and sexual hate – and quite possibly, actual paedophile grooming – would you really consider their free speech rights more important than your right to avoid being sued, or even jailed, for not stopping it?
Re: Re: Re:2 Police everywhere support that comment
It wasn’t Disney’s work to begin with, and Disney killed it slowly until they euthanized it. Not sure how Disney’s name is overly involved.
Re: Re: Re:2 Police everywhere support that comment
Well that’s one way to undermine your position from the outset…
I’m no fan of Disney, but I’m really struggling to see a side to this incident that even begins to make them look bad.
‘Disney abuses law already routinely abused to cover their asses in a way that the law is not meant to be used’ and you can’t think of any way that makes them and those defending them look bad?
In the same situation, with my commercial name and reputation being dragged right into the shit the same way, I’m fairly sure I’d do the same thing as Disney, if I had the power
Not something I’d brag about, but you do you I guess.
Outside of making a point for free speech, I think most people would, any number of TD commenters included.
Given how often people in the comments section will pop up to defend the free speech of even horrible people, and rip apart those that abuse the law to silence speech they don’t like pretty sure that assumption would not hold up very well.
If somebody cloned your work and used it as a platform for promoting racial, religious and sexual hate – and quite possibly, actual paedophile grooming – would you really consider their free speech rights more important than your right to avoid being sued, or even jailed, for not stopping it?
Faulty premise, assumes that it would be a reasonable belief that someone else making use of a copy of your work without your input or control could get you not only sued but facing jail time. For that argument to hold any weight you’d first need to present evidence to support that assumption.
However we’ll set that aside for the moment and just go off the idea that such activity could make a person/company look bad, in which case yeah, it might suck but ‘some jackasses are doing stuff that might make gullible/stupid people think worse of me’ is not an excuse to abuse the law. If said jackasses are really engaging in illegal activity then you report them for that, you don’t abuse a law to shut down speech simply because it’s easier.
Re: Re: Re:2
Gab did pretty much this exact thing with the Mastodon protocol, and since Eugen hasn’t sued the Gab people over it, I assume he at least feels he would lose any legal action taken against Gab because of both the open source nature of Mastodon and Gab’s free speech rights.
And he should lose any such legal action, too. Gab’s admins should have every right to allow any speech it wants on the Gab platform, and to make that platform with any available code — including an entire open source protocol developed by a third party. I disagree with everything Gab represents, but I still believe its users deserve a platform of their own. Saying otherwise would put me in the position of justifying the censorship of legal speech.
(Oh, and since you’d likely bring it up: Even if you could prove Gab users had used Gab to groom children for molestation, whoever provided the code for Gab shouldn’t face any legal issues for doing so unless they personally knew Gab would use the code for that illegal activity and directly gave Gab the code anyway.)
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Hello, Mr Stone. 🙂
According to wiki, Mastodon’s an open-source protocol, released under AGPLv3. Such licensing doesn’t give Eugen Rochko the legal ability to order Gab to cease and desist. He has no power over them.
By contrast, Disney’s Club Penguin materials are proprietary. The clones make use of Disney’s copyrights and trademarks, in a way that’s very probably not supported by the fair use doctrine. Disney has the legal right to order the Club Penguin clones to stop. They’ll almost certainly win, if it gets as far as a courtroom.
While there isn’t an exactly on-point case to guide, Disney having the exclusive right and ability to control the assets being used puts them very close to the established definition of vicarious liability. It’s not far-fetched to imagine someone going into court with that. Cases have gone as far as discovery with far less. It might not ultimately prevail in the US courts, but it’s a colourable theory.
All it takes is one one case – one chancer looking for a payout, or one genuinely-aggrieved parent, or one special interest group looking to fight anti-Semitism, or one zealous prosecutor pushing a state cyber-bullying law – to convince a sympathetic judge and then it’s into discovery, where Disney has to spend a small fortune fighting an ugly, expensive and entirely unnecessary case, over something that was never their fault to begin with.
Even if the attackers don’t win, it’s still a bunch of resources to fight them off or settle the case. How much time, money and energy are Disney supposed to spend defending what is basically 4-chan with pirate copies of Disney’s penguins?
This is just the US example, by the way. There’s any number of countries with more aggressive hate speech / child protection / anti-harassment laws, where Disney could potentially be held liable under any number of legal theories and doctrines.
Re: Re: Re:4
That Disney used copyright to shut that CPO shitshow down, rather than laws intended to fight child abuse/sexual predators, says a lot about (among other things) the legal system, the mantra of “innocent until proven guilty”, and how copyright fucks both of them over.
Re: Re: Update added
Name one example ever where courts have gone after someone for someone else running a site that looked like it was that other person even though there’s literally nothing else anywhere that shows that’s the case. The idea that Disney could be held liable is ridiculous. Courts always care who did what, and Disney did nothing here.
All your remaining points just boil down to "the right path would take longer than I want so it’s ok to do the wrong thing here". Two wrongs don’t make a right. The fact that the path that respects justice and basic rights of individuals takes a while is not a reason to avoid it.
Re: Re: Re: Update added
Hello, Cdaragorn. 🙂
Not being a lawyer, I don’t have an exact, on-point example to give. This wouldn’t stop Disney getting into some trouble for not stopping a problem when they’ve the power to do so.
Disney’s a much, much bigger and wealthier target than other businesses that may have been in the same situation. It’s also a worldwide business. America’s AGs may be in Disney’s pocket, but all those other countries…?
People will sue over almost anything, if they think there’s a nuisance-payout to be had. Can you honestly say you think that something like this wouldn’t attract civil actions from anywhere and everywhere?
Can you honestly say you think there aren’t any European prosecutors who’d jump at the chance to have a go at Disney and its executives, for allowing the promotion of hate groups using their assets? Anti-semitism’s apparently a thing on these clones, so how about the Israelis?
Even if Disney got lucky and dodged every legal bullet heading towards them, it’s a sure bet that it would be closely reported by the media. Would you want to be the Disney executive who had to go on TV and say "free speech is more important to us than our customers’ children’s safety"?
Re: Re: Re:2 Update added
What you are proposing is a world ruled by the powerful serving their own interests, and not a world ruled by law.
Re: Re: Re:3
So the modern world, then.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
No, he would remove the protection of law altogether, enabling corporate bosses to become warlords.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
"remove the protection of law altogether,"
You mean like what the GOP is presently doing?
" enabling corporate bosses to become warlords"
Some of them have their own armies
Re: Re: Re:2 Update added
You’re moving the goalposts. You previously said "If you don’t do anything, you’re potentially liable in the civil courts for millions in damages," which is not true. Now you’re saying "Disney could be sued," which is true; people file meritless lawsuits all the time.
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This article is dogshit. Do your research before white knighting for one of the worst server/owners of any game. Of course Disney took it down. If I did a beautiful piece of art and someone got hold of it and reworked it into a swastika or something, whether or not I cared too much about the original, my name and creation are now part of a hateful pos. Seriously, delete this article and consider a new profession dipshit.
Re: Re:
Thank you for your thoughtful and well detailed discussion of this article, including the use of both "dogshit" and "dipshit" in the same paragraph is good work.
Now, can you tell me whether or not copyright is an economic or moral right in the US, and whether or not copyright is intended to be used to block content just because you don’t like it?
I’ll wait.
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Re: Re: Re:
Just admit that you should have done a bit more research before writing an article in the defense of shitlords even if that was only tangential to the underlying copyright-enforcement angle.
Shaking your fist while lying on the floor is not a good look.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
No further research was required, and no one defended shitlords. Try reading again, and this time, with comprehension.
That is so Mickey Mouse.
If I can’t have it (or afford to run it), no one can!
Disney is not the only company to buy something which might be competetive just to snuff it out.
That is so Mickey Mouse.
If I can’t have it (or afford to run it), no one can!
Disney is not the only company to buy something which might be competetive just to snuff it out.
There is no good censorship
We should have an abandoned property like we do in meatspace (you can lose your rights to property if you don’t visit and someone squats and uses it).
As to what else might have been on the server, if it wasn’t illegal, it should be up to you to filter what you don’t want to see, not play nanny for what I want to see.
With the AI censorbots and the “we can’t say that”, the Holocaust is turning into some kind of natural disaster because the actors that caused it cannot be named.
There is no good censorship
We should have an abandoned property like we do in meatspace (you can lose your rights to property if you don’t visit and someone squats and uses it).
As to what else might have been on the server, if it wasn’t illegal, it should be up to you to filter what you don’t want to see, not play nanny for what I want to see.
With the AI censorbots and the “we can’t say that”, the Holocaust is turning into some kind of natural disaster because the actors that caused it cannot be named.
It’s a strange case of coming full circle, because "child porn exists" has been one of the rallying cries of those who beg and demand for harsher copyright laws. The problem is, as this case illustrates, you end up with every single law becoming toothless compared to IP enforcement – which has twice the issues. The standards for proving copyright infringement are terrible, and getting accused of it will burn time, money and resources you have limited quantities of, even if you’re innocent. And the more yelling "copyright" becomes the quickest way to get a response from judges, the more innocent people get thrown under the bus.
And the those above complaining that this is a child porn issue that deserves attention, you’re right. That doesn’t explain why it’s a good thing that copyright is the ideal response mechanism here. If anything, the idea that child porn mechanisms are weaker and slower than copyright mechanisms should terrify you. It means the law cares about molested children less than a few songs getting downloaded.
Yes, and Big Copyright can always use a painted-on and fake desire to save children from porn is something that they would use in the future. Judges are still prone to making emotions-based decisions, playing off the fears of pedophile infringers would be an effective strategy to get stricter laws. I wouldn’t be shocked to see them use this angle sometime in the future
"Your Honor, Mickey Mouse needs to be under copyright until 2112 because porn of Mickey Mouse could come out in a few years. Won’t somebody please think of the children who would see Mouse porn on FurAffinity?"
And quite honestly, I could definitely see some judge falling for that and locking more of our culture as a result.
don’t judge i am a kind but WHY!!!!!!!!! now i can’t go on club penguin because of disney im never watching them again!
‘
I’m sad that it was taken down, I used to regularly go on it with my friends especially since we can’t see each other in person now. However, I now know how messed up everything was. Disney had tried to sue before but they never cared enough to go through with it. But then there were accusations of child pornography, homophobia, threats, etc. It should be shut down. I hate what Disney has become and I hate the company, but this time it should have been taken down.
opinion
Methinks "Too Big To Fail" should be re-imagined, as "Too Big. Should Fail."
The Legal Corporate goal is, after all, eternally increasing profit. That’s what that funky squiggle chart is all about – ups and downs in annual profits, but trending always upwards, spells success. Downward trends are bad.
Eternally Increasing Profits are a simple impossibility, but its a grand climb, and the ‘dream’ leads to "by any means.", as a method, eventually.
Once a corporation becomes powerful enough to… say, elect its own man as POTUS, well "by any means" becomes a smorgasbord of available methods. This includes the alteration of laws to permit what used to be crimes of profiteering, coercion, black-mail and some might say, treason, for the sake of profit.
Damn good thing that can’t happen here huh. 🙂
Update?
Even with that update, it’s almost like the fastest way to take down a service is, unfortunately, via DMCA. I know you want to soapbox about copyright sucking, and Disney is definitely abusive of such typically, but they clearly had zero concerns about this until the problems came to light, and then swiftly struck it. This was more about them maintaining their clean image and less about copyright, and I’m sure you very well know that, and know as well that police and abuse groups tend to be very slow to respond to anything besides DMCA.
Opinion
Disney knew about ClubPenguinOnline since the beginning but the let it run. The dcm take down was only because of the CP allegations agains the owner of the site. I know Disney has an history of dcm abuse but this one case in particular is not about that.
Yo just have to think about it. Disney is the owner of the of Club Penguin, anything related to CubPenguin is instantly associated with Disney. The take down the website because is a problem for the brand being associated to a website acuse of racism, antisemitism and child pornography.
Is absolutely understandable the move they make, and of curse is the right thing to do, because if the owner of the site did that for who knows how long what would stop other person for doing the same thing?
Sorry if I misspelled something, english is not my firt language
Bruh It was used as grooming for pedophilia check your articles.
Re: Re:
"bruh" maybe read the article before commenting?
Roadrunner1
The Roadrunner is the best!