If you are like the overwhelming majority of Minecraft players, the amount of attention given to the End User Licence Agreement seems high. After all, it affects so few. Most of the problem concerns Mojang stating that they are going to enforce policies that already exist. Policies that are already super lenient.
Mojang created a game. They allow others to host copies of it and run a server. The idea has always been that you can run a server, and split the cost of running it among a group. If some amount of money was made, that was OK. Server owners charging for elements of the game was not supposed to be part of the deal, and should not be tolerated.
The whole problem is that Mojang is trying to be nice about the whole thing. They want people to have fun playing their game. They don't want people having to pay to get things that are freely available in the game. This expectation is more than reasonable.
Not only that, but with the advent of Minecraft Realms they are in the market of hosting servers themselves. That is, in plain speak, they are graciously allowing server owners to use a copy of their own product to compete with them. Is it beginning to sink in just how kind they are being to even allow private server hosting? Granted Realms does not allow mega-server sizes, but it could be easily scaled to do so.
It would be in their best interest to update the EULA in the 1.8 release to read that: "Non-Mojang-Hosted servers are for private, non-commercial use only. As such no fees of any kind may be assessed to access them, in part or in whole." They haven't done this because they are trying to be good about it. But really, their lives, and the lives of the majority of players, would be easier if they did.
This all could change due to the sophomoric, greedy, morally-questionable actions of a small minority of server owners. The continued twitter-spamming, insults, complaints, and threats (Yes, threats) are causing a great deal of irritation, frustration, and disappointment on the part of the Mojang staff. They are tired of it. I don't blame them.
Unlike most, I have read the EULA. Mojang's EULA is not written in legalese, and is short enough to be easily understood. There is simply no excuse for anyone to be mad about this. They were told of the changes, given time to review them and adjust, they have now been warned and even given a grace period.
There is also no reason for Mojang to put up with it. If it were my choice I would add a phrase to the 1.8 EULA push: "Any attempt to charge for access to any part of the game, other than a server access fee, will result in an immediate revocation of license for the offending party. This is entirely at Mojang's discretion, and may be appealed." I might be tempted to leave off the: "other than a server access fee" part, as well.
