Club Penguin Online has been shut down by Disney
18 May 2020, 11:36
The official trailer for Club Penguin Online
Disney discontinued the original Club Penguin website in 2017.
Disney have officially shut down Club Penguin Online over claims that the website "contains infringing copyrighted content.”
Earlier this year (Mar 31), a new version of Club Penguin launched on the internet. Club Penguin Online boasted many of the same features as the original Club Penguin website, including the chat rooms, customisable penguins and the mini-games that made Club Penguin so iconic in 2005. The new Club Penguin site quickly amassed over 8,000,000 subscribers.
READ MORE: Club Penguin is back and 6 million users have already signed up
However, Club Penguin Online was an unauthorised copy of Disney's Club Penguin and now Disney have taken it down.
Last week, The Walt Disney Company issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown and Club Penguin Online was removed from the internet on Friday (May 15). In the claim, which you can read via Lumen Database, Disney state that Club Penguin Online “is an unauthorized version of the Club Penguin game and contains infringing copyrighted content.”
In a now-deleted blog post from last week on the Club Penguin Online website, an admin explained that they would remove the site from the internet due to Disney taking legal action against them. They also wrote: "If anyone does try to revive the game, it’ll be extremely difficult now as you’ll have to worry about Disney, and in all honestly, it isn’t worth it."
Due to it being unofficial, Club Penguin Online was never moderated by staff and the BBC reports that, unlike Club Penguin, it was filled with "racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and sexual messages". They also report that one of the men behind the gaming site had been arrested on suspicion of child pornography.
The official trailer for Club Penguin- Elite Penguin Force
In a statement about Club Penguin Online, Disney has said: “Child safety is a top priority for the Walt Disney Company and we are appalled by the allegations of criminal activity and abhorrent behaviour on this unauthorised website that is illegally using the Club Penguin brand and characters for its own purposes."
Club Penguin was initially discontinued in 2017 after Disney saw a dramatic decrease in its popularity. As it stands, Disney have no plans to officially relaunch it.
