The operator of a site that informally provided Disney's online games, which once had 200 million users, is arrested

' Club Penguin ' is an online game with a penguins motif released by Disney in 2005. The game, which was also offered in Japan, was a popular title with 200 million users in 2013, but in 2017 the server was shut down and the service ended. Even after the official service ended, Club Penguin continued to be an unofficial ported version operated by fans, but the operator who provided one of them, 'Club Penguin Rewritten', was arrested by the City of London Police. It has been.

UK cops seize unofficial Club Penguin site and arrest three people | PC Gamer
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/uk-cops-seize-unofficial-club-penguin-site-and-arrest-three-people/

Club Penguin is an online game developed by game developer New Origin Interactive and released in 2005. Immediately after its release, it has been a huge success and is especially popular with young people. In 2007, the developer, New Horizon Interactive, was acquired by Disney for $ 350 million, making it an online game offered by Disney. The first Club Penguin, which was developed based on Flash, will be discontinued in 2017, but 'Club Penguin Island' which has evolved to Unity base has appeared. However, this Club Penguin Island will also be discontinued soon.

Club Penguin was an online game, but at the same time it was also an online 'hangout' for certain generations. As a result, even after Club Penguin's official service has ended, countless unofficial ports will appear on the Internet, some with millions of players.

One of the most popular unofficial ports of Club Penguin is 'Club Penguin Rewritten'. However, when I visit the site, I can see that the service has suddenly stopped, with the logo of the City of London Police and only 'This site has been taken over by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU)'. .. PIPCU is a unit for cracking down on intellectual property-related crimes within the City of London Police, and is an organization consisting of 19 people including police officers and detectives.

City
https://cprewritten.net/

After that, PIPCU told Techcrunch , an overseas media, 'In response to complaints under copyright law, PIPCU seized the Club Penguin Rewritten website as part of an ongoing investigation.' Three people were arrested on April 12, local time on suspicion of distribution and are still under investigation. '' The three arrested were released during the investigation and were released by Club Penguin Rewritten to assist police investigations. I have agreed to keep the website under the control of PIPCU, 'explaining that copyright infringement has resulted in the closure of Club Penguin Rewritten.

'Club Penguin Rewritten will be closed soon upon full request from Disney. We will administer the website to the police to help investigate copyright infringement,' said Thorn, who manages Club Penguin Rewritten's Discord server. Voluntarily transferred. '

On Reddit, Club Penguin Rewritten users have posted screenshots taken before the site closed, and one user posted a melancholy comment saying, 'Our world is going to collapse.'


Disney is known as a company that hates the unofficial handling of its IP, and has been cracking down on the unofficial version of Club Penguin for many years. In 2020, we have succeeded in driving the end of service of 'Club Penguin Online,' which had acquired more than 1 million new users due to the pandemic of the new coronavirus.