Minecraft servers are apparently "illegal," according to the Vice President of America's biggest gaming association

Minecraft servers are "illegal" and "not in any way affiliated with Microsoft or Mojang." At least, that's what Jennifer Gibbons, Vice President of State Government Affairs at the Entertainment Software Association, told the California State Senate's Professions and Economic Development Committee on Monday, June 29.

The committee was voting on Assembly Bill 1921, which you may know better as the Protect Our Games Act. The legislation aims to prevent publishers from making server-dependent games unplayable, requiring full, advance notice from developers before service is terminated. It would also force developers to provide support that ensures the game is playable when servers go offline, or offer refunds to consumers if that isn't possible.

The bill passed through the California State Assembly on June 1, but faced the State Senate on June 29. Present at the hearing was Jennifer Gibbons, Vice President of the Entertainment Software Association. The ESA is the trade association of the videogame industry in the United States and represents the interests of developers and publishers when it comes to legislation like this. In California, she was there to convince members of the committee to vote against AB 1921, which is where she made the bizarre comment about Minecraft servers.

In opposition to the bill, Gibbons stated that no other digital product faced the same scrutiny that AB 1921 would bring to videogames, and suggested that the requirement for refunds did not consider the years of enjoyment that consumers would have received from the game before it was sunset.

When asked by the committee about the possibility of community servers being used to keep games alive, and whether that would be a breach of copyright and technically possible, California Assembly Member Chris Ward stated that popular games like Minecraft and Call of Duty currently use community-hosted servers, and confirmed that it was an option.

In response, Gibbons claimed: "They're illegal, and they are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft, for Minecraft, has gotten a lot of criticism because of those community servers not employing the same safety standards as Microsoft servers." When asked by a committee if community servers were "the black market of videogames," Gibbons replied: "Yes, we consider it piracy."

Unsurprisingly, this raised quite a few eyebrows among the gaming community. If you've played Minecraft, you'll know that not only are community servers a huge part of the sandbox game, but they are actually promoted by Mojang and Microsoft. For example, on the official Minecraft website, there is a section dedicated to playing with friends that includes a mention of community-run servers.

On top of that, the official Minecraft website literally provides players with the software required to create and run their own server. Odd behaviour if Microsoft and Mojang view them as "illegal," as suggested by Gibbons. PCGamesN has reached out to Mojang for comment on the matter, and will update this story should we receive a response.

In the end, AB 1921 did not pass through the State Senate; however, the Stop Killing Games initiative, which brought the act, stated that it had "never expected to get this far" and would return with amendments to the bill in the future.

Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson has previously thrown his support behind the initiative, calling on gamers to "host your own servers" and saying that "if buying a game is not a purchase, then pirating them is not theft."