Developer wins default court judgement in lawsuit against host of unauthorised World Of Warcraft server.

Gamasutra has acquired court documents that reveal a U.S. District Court judge awarded Blizzard $88 million last week. The developer won a lawsuit against Alyson Reeves, who operated an unauthorised World Of Warcraft server on scapegaming.com.

Among other allegations, Blizzard accused Reeves of copyright infringement, unfair competition and circumvention of copyright protection systems, saying that Scapegaming was "well aware" of the unauthorised nature of its actions. The company offered virtual items and services for sale, including $1 to advance a character by two levels and a $300 rare item pack.

Reeves didn't respond to the suit, resulting in a default court judgement. The judge's order said that Blizzard "submitted satisfactory evidence from third-party PayPal Inc. showing that the defendant’s PayPal account received $3,052,339 in gross revenues." It goes on to detail evidence that scapegaming.com hosted 32,000 users in one day during June 2008.

The award consists of $85.4 million in statutory damages, over $3 million in disgorged profits and $64,000 in attorney's fees. The court arrived at the award by multiplying the total Scapegaming community of 427,000 by $200 "per act of circumvention" of Blizzard's copyright security system.

It is currently unknown whether Reeves intends to appeal.