Earlier this week, we covered the eyebrow-raising news that Daybreak was suing EverQuest emulator server The Heroes Journey in a California court. As we noted, Daybreak (fka SOE) has a long history of supporting older versions of its games by running progression servers, licensing player-run servers like Project 1999, and turning a blind eye toward non-profit emulators for both its dead and live games. (We cover the former, but not the latter). Indeed, classic EverQuest has spawned dozens of emulators via the open-source project EQEmulator, which avoids using Daybreak code and does not fundraise.
However, according to its own players, The Heroes Journey, the largest of the servers with thousands of players and heaps of custom content, has openly charged money for in-game perks, not just taken donations to pay its rent, leading some fans to accuse it of operating for profit, which we are assuming is the chief reason Daybreak has chosen to pursue it with a lawsuit. In its initial request for a restraining order, Daybreak sought to unmask the remaining anonymous developers of the server and halt THJ’s “illegal” operations on the grounds that its devs were engaging in “systematic and deliberate copyright and trademark infringement,” thereby causing Daybreak “irreparable harm,” which usually means money.
The judge in the suit initially denied those requests but in ensuing action has apparently partly reversed course in response to Daybreak’s amended motion for a TRO. The judge has now signed off on the amended TROÂ that blocks THJ from issuing new content updates during the trial; mandates that THJ inform its players via Discord that it is subject to this litigation; demands the preservation of THJ’s code, comms, and financial records (oof); and commands THJ to deposit ongoing “proceeds” not used in the basic upkeep of the server into a third-party escrow account (double oof). It does mean the server stays up for now, but without content updates, all while, uh, evidence of profit accumulates in escrow (triple oof).
The Heroes Journey Discord announcement is up, along with the required hard link to the TRO, which references Daybreak’s disagreement with THJ’s two top operators’ insistence that that their company, Another Quest LLC, should be the defendant, not themselves.
As THJ skates on, we note that multiple not-for-profit emulators have temporarily closed their doors in light of the lawsuit, including Quarm and Wayfarer’s Haven, both suggesting they would cooperate with Daybreak, though neither is being targeted in this legal effort. Seems more than a little unfair, eh?
