Non-RPG General News - On Fan Project Shutdowns

@Equity Arcade Michelle McLean talks about how zealous some companies can be about shutting down fan projects and why. 

In 2015, a small group ran a small private server, titled Nostalrius, for those nostalgic for the olden days of World of Warcraft-and boy, there were many nostalgics. Before the order, 800,000 accounts were registered on the private server, of which 150,000 were active.

Of course, typical private servers are disallowed. After all, you're getting to play a game for free, especially in World of Warcraft's case. But Nostalrius was a tad different, as it ran version 1.12-the update right before The Burning Crusade expansion-perpetually. The server was deemed the "Authentic, Vanilla WoW" and even ran for about a year before Blizzard's French and US branches officially filed lawsuits ordering the server to be shut down by April 10, 2016.

Of course, fans didn't take this lightly and even formed a petition in response, which garnered roughly 38,000 supports at the time of this writing... within a single day. This quote speaks deeply though:

"We never saw our community as a threat for Blizzard. It sounds more like a transverse place where players can continue to enjoy old World of Warcraft's games no longer available, maybe until a new expansion appears; a huge and powerful community of fans that remains attached to future Blizzard games, as we have in no other gaming company.

We don't have the pretention to come up with a complete solution regarding legacy servers that you and your company didn't already think about, but we'd be glad and honored to share it with you if you're interested, still on a volunteer basis."

And you know what? The volunteers are absolutely right. How are they a threat to Blizzard and World of Warcraft? After all, it's not like the players are going to start playing the newer version of World of Warcraft if they lose access to the vanilla server.

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The author cites valid reasons for a takedown below.

Fans are making money off the IP
This is another reasonable reason for a shutdown. If the project is not-for-profit, then I don't see a reason for said project to be shut down, but more on that in a bit. Now, if fans are making money off an IP, then yea, there is an issue there. You're making money using a company's rights, which just sounds wrong, and if copyrighted, that could land you in hot water.

Companies are in the midsts of planning something a fan has already gone ahead and established
That's right-sometimes, when a takedown occurs, it's because the company is hiding some big secret. If a fan is crafting an HD remake of a game and a company orders a takedown, it could be merely because there are plans in store for an official HD remake. For instance, the Resident Evil 2 Remake Fan Project. InvaderGames, the group behind Resident Evil 2: Reborn, had once been ordered to abandon the work at Capcom's behest, only because Capcom revealed plans to remake the game itself. However, this actually led to a happy ending, as InvaderGames was invited to meet with the development team of Capcom "to discuss further ideas."

To me, that's awesome and a huge benefit for everyone, and it can happen, depending on the developers.