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World of Warcraft: Blizzard Being Sued
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
News.com has reported that Blizzard is being sued for blocking an eBayer who was trying to see his own unofficial guide to the game. We've given you a part of the story, read the whole thing by following the link below:
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Makers of the wildly popular "World of Warcraft" online game now face a lawsuit from an eBay seller who claims he was improperly barred from selling copies of his own unofficial gaming guide.
Filed Thursday in a California federal court, the complaint (click here for PDF) alleges that Blizzard Entertainment, its parent company Vivendi Universal, and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) were wrong to order eBay to terminate auctions of "The Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide," a book penned by 24-year-old Brian Kopp of Bronson, Fla. The multiplayer online game of wizards, warriors and monsters has now attracted a following of 6 million subscribers worldwide since it debuted in 2004--among them, active virtual guilds. During several months beginning last August, Kopp sold several hundred copies of his guide, which contains tips on playing the game and accumulating points, at roughly $15 apiece. Weeks after his first auction went live, Blizzard, Vivendi, and the ESA began sending repeated takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), asking eBay to yank the auctions because of copyright and trademark infringement concerns. The auction giant's general policy is to halt auctions when it receives such complaints and to suspend a user's account after it racks up a certain number of warnings. Kopp filed counternotices protesting the infringement claims. Because the companies did not respond to the documents within 14 days, eBay was free under the DMCA to reinstate his auctions, which it did. But by November, eBay had accumulated enough takedown warnings from the companies to warrant suspending Kopp's account. He restarted his sales under a new username, which quickly earned suspension, too. The companies went on to threaten copyright and trademark infringement action against Kopp. In one message quoted in the complaint, a Blizzard executive said Kopp could not lawfully sell a guide that "attempts to trade off the substantial goodwill and recognition that Blizzard has built up in connection with its World of Warcraft product." He also dismissed Kopps' claims that his book was solely meant for "educational" value, saying it clearly had a commercial purpose. |
Read it all, here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
East Carolina University, Computer Science BS, 2011
--------------------
Current game: DAOC
Games played and quit: L2, PlanetSide, RF Online, GuildWars, SWG, COH/COV, Vanguard, LOTRO, WoW, WW2 Online, FFXI, Auto-Assault, EVE Online, ShadowBane, RYL, Rappelz, Last Chaos, Myst Online, POTBS, EQ2, Warhammer Online, AoC, Aion, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, Allods, Darkfall.
Waiting on: Earthrise
Names: Citio, Goldie, Sportacus
There have been some MMO's recently that got ebay to pull all auctions involving their games. As far as accounts/credits go. Some of these games had been listed on ebay for years. Seems some things are shifting..
As far as this case goes.
Blizzard had at least one official guide (which means some deal was worked out). Those guides usually get updated now and then and sold as a more or less new guide. If Blizzard gets some portion of those sales along with who ever writes it.. Then all independent and non sanctioned guides cut into profits.
I have no idea how they get a guide pulled really. EQ1 about the only thing that stayed on Ebay was guides.
However, there are places like playerauctions that dont' follow the same rules as ebay. (aka just about every game out there has credits or accounts for sale there). In that sense this guy could have just listed there and probably had a wider audience.
If Blizzard used the DMCA as a reference for ebay to pull the sales...
and then got sued..
Personally if they had ground to stand on with the DMCA claim.. my next move would be to officially contact the feds with a DMCA violation complaint on this guy.
Why would I hope they do that? (if they actually had a DMCA footing with the ebay pull)
This kind of lawsuit is what screws up the courts in the US beyond all else. Drives up the cost on everything we buy and in my opinion shouldn't even be allowed to be filed.
This guy does in fact have other auction sites he can list at that don't pull auctions... Any payment type he's taking (paypal, western union etc...) is supported by those sites. Since those sites actually cover more sales in various MMO's he'd even have a wider audience to sell to.
Just a waste of court time and drives up the cost of the game which affects people that play it (I don't).
Sorry for the ramble...
Still comes down to if they actually had grounds with the DMCA to have these auctions pulled. I hope they actually file violation charges now.
(I could care less the guy sells guides but like I say he has plenty of other sites to sell them at that have a larger audience for his product and this is just a waste of court time and will cost blizzard thus all their customers.. I don't play WoW myself.)
Good for him I hope he gets few billion!
WoW been down almost 24 hours now!
Mh, I don't agree that it is good if he earns money like crazy, just because blizzard does. if you are jealous of blizzards income, don't pay them by playing wow.
On the other hand, I also think it sucks that blizzard is sueing the guy, just because they will be doing some few thousands less.
If he had given out his book for just a few bucks, or even for free... there is so much free info on the web neither he nor blizzard makes any money from. But sure, I wouldn't mind knowing some tricks to make more money faster, but then, I finally settled into enjoying the questing and leveling - this whole business now with articles, etc are free commercial for the guy. Now, what was his web-page again...
Its called intelectual rights! Its only right that Bliz can sue the hell out of this guy. He is obviously a leech, making a quick buck on someone elses work.
A counterclaim is so rediculous it boggles my mind.
"Only in America" springs to mind
I think I may have his guide somewhere tucked away on my hard drive. If it is the one I am thinking of it does have quite a few screenshots of the game, not one or two but almost every other page. Rather ironically the guide tells the reader not to use eBay to buy gold, but the guide tells you the best places to farm for gold and gear (without exploiting like the hunter FD exploit in Mauradon). It also mentions some "nasty guy" tactics involving taking items that are BoP anyway without rolling etc.
His guide you have to pay for, but thottbot.com and other sites are free which usually contains more up to date information any way. His guide is really aimed at power gamers (it tells you how to get to lvl 60 in like one week and believe me it does work) and is probably better than the official one imo. I think Blizzard's main issue is it makes playing World of Warcraft a bit of a joke.
No annoying animated GIF here!
blizzard isnt sueing him, the guy is sueing blizzard
East Carolina University, Computer Science BS, 2011
--------------------
Current game: DAOC
Games played and quit: L2, PlanetSide, RF Online, GuildWars, SWG, COH/COV, Vanguard, LOTRO, WoW, WW2 Online, FFXI, Auto-Assault, EVE Online, ShadowBane, RYL, Rappelz, Last Chaos, Myst Online, POTBS, EQ2, Warhammer Online, AoC, Aion, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, Allods, Darkfall.
Waiting on: Earthrise
Names: Citio, Goldie, Sportacus
This guy should be the happiest man on the earth. Blizzard just made him a millionaire.
Make a difference!
This guy should be the happiest man on the earth. Blizzard just made him a millionaire.
Make a difference!
You know what they say: Any publicity is good publicity.
Good for him. I hope he wins. I have no idea why huge companies feel the need to squash the little guy. Maybe if Blizzard and pretty much all other MMO makers took the time to create guides yearly for their games, this wouldn't be an issue.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
That is like saying every single book on antiquing/collecting that metions the "Buy Now" button on ebay is leeching. Or anyone teachign sound editting on a system that uses S/PDIF should be paying royalties to Sony/Phillips for the great honor of mentioning somethign they created.
He wrote the book, no matter how good or bad it is the book itself is his intelectual property. If he included images from the game those must be reference and such, but the text is the writers property,not [edit missed a word] the property of the subject.
If the subject owned the property rights the entire journalism profession wouldn't exist, they would be called publicists...Heck every review of WoW would be the property of Blizzard, think of the impartial views then~!
Dammit
hate to admit it but
you do have a point althou noone knows since the copyright and trademark infringement concerns that Bliz have are not specified. To me it just sounds like he decided to hit back on a technicallity instead of any real consern over what is right and what is wrong.
Well, my previous statemnt is based on someone properly writting something. Random home published books on eBay have a high chance of not properly stating copyright info, plagarism and such. If he did that then yank the book. We don't really know one way or the other.
I was responding more on philo basis in general above than specificaly. Ya, I honestly think there is a high chance of plagarism in the book on WoW. Chances are with settlements and such now-a-days we will never know the basis of the claim.
My response was rather harsh but the basis is... In this country people sue for anything and everything. Its their once chance at cash with better odds than power ball or whatever local lottery they may have access to. The fallout of that is.. all this crap that gets settled out of court because its 'cheaper' only costs one group of people... Consumers.
If you are happy because you don't like Blizzard (an example) it creates a scenario where what future game/company does make you happy... Can be sued thus costing you in the long run.
My real point is... It was well known by sellers on Ebay that Ebay was going to pull ALL World of Warcraft related auctions.
When I played UO I once bought an account from UOTreasures so I've been on their mailing list forever.. and yes I've had this email that long. I got one of their newletter type emails a few months back that Ebay would soon pull WoW auctions and it wasn't that long ago that they sent another that it had happened.
WoW is not the only game that has had ebay auctions pulled...
The only other point I really have is... if you go to playerauctions (website) there are hundreds of WoW auctions if not thousands and they will never be pulled. The site goes down a lot but speculate that to the fact that IGE owns the site now. Thus the site going down hurts their competition... (rumor).
This guy does have alternate sources to sell his book/guide. That would in fact have a bigger audience for his chosen product.
I fail to see how he has any right to sue .. because he has alternative ways to sell his product.. that would be more effective.
My other comment isn't about Blizzard getting a lawsuit against him.
When the law changed with the DMCA many things changed. And they changed greatly the DMCA is what the record industry hides behind with the crap they pull.
If Blizzard has anything to stand on with a DMCA claim of having this guide pulled... it wouldn't be about a lawsuit.. it would be about a federal law violation..
That's why I say if they actually had grounds to stand on to have this guide pulled. Then filing a lawsuit against Blizzard would be the dumbest thing you could do. The next move would be to push the violation back in your direction and the Feds handle that.
I've tried to read the DMCA a few times and trust me... its far easier to read the lord of the rings trilogy at age 5 than the mass of crap.
So, if someone is pulling all WoW related auctions discriminantly doesn't that mean there is an issue here?
Lets say i wrote a guide to all level 60 dungeon/instances in WoW. I don't plagarise anything. I create all the maps by hand. No in game graphics are used. The auction is pulled once, k burden of proof is on me. I get auction reinstated should be the end of the issue after proving no copyright laws were broken. Blizz just has to suck it up and try to sell their authorized guide with a lil competition.
Now, even though I proved my auction is legit, and all WoW related auctions are pulled (including mine) again...now we have a secondary issue. Blizzard is tryign to create a monopoly on intellectual property that they do not own. But, I get my auction reinstated.
Now repeat this so many times that Blizzard has exploited the system to put my account up for review and possible cancellation. Even though I did nothing wrong, they have abused a system to creat a monopoly and harrased the competition. That is illegal, and should be stopped.
Again we don't know the situation, but as you have stated this has happened to other games. And things that are legal to sell are being eliminated from a free market and that isn't good.
Maybe I am a little too serious about this, but think of it this way. If i wrote a cookbook called "100 Recipes for your Cuisanart" and Cuisanart pulled the book from the market wouldn't there be an uproar? How about "100 3D Dinsaur Models Made With Legos" and Lego pulled the book.
I created the recipes, I created the dino models. Shouldn't I get the same protections as a company larger than I am?
Don't get me started on the DMCA. It is a joke. The comsumer needs the protection now, not those producing the content. Copyright verification programs destroying computers (Starforce), things being installed without concent or any notice in any fine print, unable to make backups of media for personal use even though it is legal under law...
As an off the wall, but accurate corelation from the latest Foamy cartoon. When you buy a CD and there is a security tag that interferes with the enjoyment of the linear notes, that I paid full price for but can't fully access with out possibly destroying the content, why am I being charged full price?
Um...sorry, rant off now.
There goes Blizzard, thinking it's "All" that again..
Hope the guy wins! It's a guide for god's sake.. Not a dev's secret game document!
"Huntress"
I suppose Blizzard is suing all their fan sites too?
I agree with Antarious that lawsuits are by far too common and too frivilous in America. But I believe Kopp is in the right by filing a lawsuit. Precedent will be a huge issue in deciding the outcome of the case and I'm not knowledgable enough to know of any related. However, what he is asking for seems fair (basically the undisputed right to sell the guide wherever and money compensation equal to lost sales). The fact that he filed a complaint about his auctions being pulled the first time and receiving no response for it leaves me to believe Blizzard either A) Doesn't really care about the sitaution all that much and just has some drone going through ebay every other week to find auctions to ban or
Has no reasonable cause (sketchy laws removed)
It's always something...