“Long term we actually have to look at servers as a whole. The nice part about it is we have doubled how many people we can put on each server since launch. The down side is that at launch, because people were upset at the long queues we aired on the side of opening up more space. What that has now done is separated our player-base into a larger group.”
When The Old Republic originally launched, servers were staggered in order to ensure that players evened out over the course of launch. Following launch, Bioware has slowly increased server capacity to allow more people into each server. The combination of increased capacity and post-launch player activity has resulted in a number of servers with a dearth of players, and Bioware is looking into server mergers in the future.
First, however, Bioware will be opting for a server transfer approach, allowing players to freely move about to the server of their desire.
“One of the problems we’re running into right now is kind of a classic MMO problem, which is that our overall population of players has not changed, but our peak concurrent users has changed”
(Source: Now Gamer)
MMO Fallout 
Actually it is illegal if you undsretand how and why. It’s considered copyright and IP infringement. The police won’t kick down your door and you probably won’t go to jail over it, but legally speaking you’re in the wrong and the game owners certainly have the legal right to sue you.Will they is a whole different question though as going after individual transgressors is costly and often not worth the trouble. If anything they typically go after the private server owners with cease and desist court orders. Sometimes they have to go beyond that and actually take the offender to court.Like it or not, that’s how thing are in the real world. You can pout and cry and make up silly excuses as to why you think it is legal, but facts are facts and private servers aren’t legal. Unless the country you live in doesn’t have Internet crime laws. In that case sure. But by your attitude, I’m assuming you’re a US resident.