Club Penguin‘s fan-made recreation has been shut down and seized by police over copyright issues.
Three individuals were arrested following action taken by Disney, who owned the original site and shut it down in 2017, but they have since been released. As reported by TechCrunch, Club Penguin Rewritten was set up later that year but as of April 2022 has ceased to exist.
The website’s Discord was emptied except for one message from an admin that said “we have voluntarily given control over the website to the police for them to continue their copyright investigation.”
A statement was also published on the Club Penguin Rewritten website from DC Daryl Fryatt of the City of London Police’s IP crime unit (PIPCU) that said a complaint was made under copyright law.
It continued: “Three people were arrested on April 12 on suspicion of distributing materials infringing copyright and searches were carried out. They have been released under investigation and to aid with the police investigation, they agreed to sign over the website to the control of PIPCU.”
It’s not the first Club Penguin fan remake to be shut down but given the over seriousness and involvement of police in this case, but it may be the last.
A server was taken down in 2020 seemingly in relation to reports of e-sex taking place while other remakes have involve horrifying blood sports.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.