All summer, we’ve been covering the lawsuit Daybreak levied against the Heroes Journey EverQuest emulator over copyright violations. It’s been winding its way through preliminary proceedings as Daybreak sought injunctions to prevent the server that is using its copyright and assets from continuing to generate money while bleeding EverQuest itself, which Daybreak’s Jenn Chan previously told a court was “operating below sustainable user engagement thresholds, requiring operational adjustments to maintain current service levels” owing to emulators including THJ. As of last night, the judge has granted Daybreak’s motion.
In a nutshell, the judge found that “Daybreak has satisfied the requirements for issuance of a preliminary injunction” and granted it; she holds that the individual operators of THJ can be held personally liable, that “the law and facts clearly favor” Daybreak’s position and likelihood of success on the merits, that Daybreak established THJ’s violation of its copyright, that arguments over Daybreak’s movement on emulators were unpersuasive, and that THJ is “likely to cause irreparable harm” to both its goodwill and its finances.
In granting the injunction, the court effectively forbids THJ, at least for now, from continuing to operate the website and server, maintaining code repositories, operating EQ emulation software, and using the EQ mark. In other words, it’s at least temporarily over for The Heroes Journey.
That said, because previous hearings had demonstrated that THJ was pulling in as much as $100,000 per month in revenues, the court set bond at $1,000,000. Basically, Daybreak must put up a million bucks on the chance that the litigation will go against it, and that money would theoretically go to the defendants to make up for their own lost revenues should Daybreak lose. Should Daybreak win, the money returns to Daybreak, along with any future damages and the THJ revenues already locked in escrow.
The server is apparently still up as of this morning, and there’s been no official announcement from THJ, though fans on Discord and Reddit are already resigning themselves to the fact that it’s almost certainly lights out.
As a side note, we also got the whole transcript from the August hearing on Daybreak’s supplementary motion for a preliminary injunction, during which the judge was already favoring Daybreak’s request and was trying to sort out bond calculation. Lawyers argued that THJ’s “denigrating” public statements and server design were “leading to a loss of interest in [the original] game,” which had generated irreparable damage and harm to Daybreak’s MMO, thereby “[taking] the heart out of the way that EverQuest is played.” Daybreak’s counsel further stated that THJ counted 30,000 players as of July, approximately the same number OG EverQuest has lost – “approximately 36 percent of [EverQuest’s] monthly users” – which had already led Daybreak to contemplate layoffs of Daybreak staff.
“If this leaves EverQuest, the 25-plus years that we have spent, the millions of dollars that we have spent on this game is going to go out the window. And, Your Honor, I respectfully submit that is — that is the very essence of irreparable harm.”
Updates when we have them.
• Daybreak wins preliminary injunction against EverQuest emulator The Heroes Journey • Heroes Journey emu devs have fired back in the EverQuest emulator lawsuit saga • Daybreak says The Heroes Journey emulator directly harmed EverQuest’s finances and playerbase • One of the EverQuest emulators is back with an official agreement with Daybreak – but it’s pretty restrictive • Judge approves order mandating EverQuest emu The Heroes Journey halt content and put profits in escrow • Daybreak is chasing EverQuest emulator operators from The Heroes Journey in court Source: Daybreak v. Takahashi et al. Cheers, Crimson and Wilhelm! UpdateTHJ’s statement in Discord this evening is to wait for the official statement.
