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EULA Confusion w/ Used Copies of WoW?
They keep telling me they will not transfer an account. I keep telling them I do not want an account transferred, but want to create my own account. What appears to be the final answer is that 'an authentication key can only be used once, regardless of the number of owners.'
This is not stated anywhere in the EULA or Terms of Use. If it is, I have been unable to find it, and *Blizzard has repeatedly ignored my request that they identify where in the EULA or Terms of Use this is stated.*
I have the complete retail package, including the CD case with the Authentication Key. So what if it is has been used in the past? Whatever happened to the first-sale doctrine?
At one point, the Blizzard representative likened my request to buying an empty milk jug and returning to the store to demand more milk for free so I can use the jug. This is an incredibly inept analogy. What Blizzard is doing is allowing only the original purchaser of the jug to buy a refill; anyone else who happens to buy or be given the jug is prohibited from buying more milk to put in it.
Another item of interest is that the representative told me that they can not, for any reason, delete an account, not even at the account owner's request. The most they can do is to suspend the account. Unfortunately, that keeps a record of the Authentication Key in their system, preventing that key from ever being used again.
While the EULA expressly permits permanent transfer of ownership of the game to another person, nowhere does either the EULA or
the Terms of Use mention that such a transfer makes the game completely useless because Blizzard will not allow the new owner to use the game; the game cannot be played without an online account and a subscription to the service, and Blizzard
will not even allow the account to be created.
You might say the "easy" answer is to get the seller to give me the account info for the account he created. However, according to Blizzard's representative, not all of the original
account information can be modified. In fact, enough would be unchangable that the original owner of the account would be able to regain control of the account at any time, should he
desire to do so.
I had no expectation that a used copy of the game would be such a problem. After all, even all of Blizzard's previous games (Warcraft 2, Starcraft, BroodWar) had keys that could be used and passed on while maintaining the reasonable restriction that only one instance of the key could be used
at any one time. (I have never bought or played Warcraft 3, so I do not know about it.) In fact, I bought my copy of Starcraft used and never had any trouble with it.
I am not trying to cheat Blizzard out of anything. I *want* to pay them for a monthly subscription so I can play the game, but they will not allow it solely because at some point in the past someone else has used what is now my copy of the game.
So here's a warning to everyone out there; be very careful if you are thinking about buying a used copy of World of Warcraft. You may have a complete and legitimate set of all the game materials, but you will not be able to play it.
For all the lawyers, and the many IANALs, out there, what do you think of the chances of a lawsuit succeeding to change Blizzard's stance on this? Would anyone else be interested in taking this on with me?"
A question that comes to mind is whether the seller fulfilled all three parts of the Termination clause, section 5 of the EULA. If the seller failed to notify Blizzard of intention to terminate, it could be argued that the seller's licenses remain in effect and thus new license could not be given to the buyer of the used game. But one would hope Blizzard's customer service would at least make this clear to the buyer.
QED.
Considering how difficult it is right now to find a new copy of WoW this could be a major issue.
For those not in the know, at least for a time, Blizzard pulled from the shelves new copies of WoW and stopped shipping due to server load issues.
I know of more than one person who was unable to get a copy for several weeks because of this.
#include sig.h
the answer is clear. sue them. you know that is what they would do to you if you violated the End User Agreement.
New copes of the game can be hard to find. I know that (as recently as last month) Blizzard wasn't moving any more retail copies because the game had become too popular and there were (are?) server issues.
I'm not sure if the poster was unable to find a new copy, or simply wanted to save a couple of bucks. Regardless, it seems like this kind of thing should be legal according to Blizzard's own EULA.
I guess I'm not surprised he's getting the run around from Customer Support, though. IMHO Blizzard has fallen a long way from it's lofty perch before the original owners were bought out..
Sorry, but you're completely missing the point of the author's article.
The intent was that whether or not he bought it used or new, he should have the right to play it.
There haven't been server queues for weeks. I'm on one of the more populated servers from release day, and I haven't noticed any problems in a long time.
You've already created an account with that CD key. You use the same account you created before your hard drive crashed. Now if Blizzard's hard drives crash, you might have other problems... :-)
The account isn't actually "cancelled." It is set to inactive, so that the account holder can later re-activate it and use his old characters. There is no way to kill it completely so the key can be reused.
Blizzard has already posted about this kind of issue:
n =b lizzard-archive&t=13&p=1&tmp=1#post13
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?f
You, sir, are SOL. Sorry.
Another thing about WoW. I had a problem where they refused to cancel my account for a month after I cancelled it online. They basically said that cancelling it online isn't good enough to actually cancel the account. You need to call them and make sure they close it and it probably wouldnt be a bad idea to get some form of receipt.
Actually it can't, I just tried that. There's fine print that says you have to buy a new set of retail cds and enter that key.
Simple.
The distributor gets the cash out of the box sales.
If accounts were free, or available from online, there would be no distribution of the box version. No distributor wants to touch a game that is available online cheaper (or even at same price, but 'easier').
And stupid people won't consider games they can't buy as a box from a store. No store visibility = way less subscribers.
Only when the game is dead as a doorknob as 'store boxed version', the sale / giveaway of accounts beings.
Basically they are feeding Vivendi Universal or whoever handles the distribution. VU has to get mucho money, so VU can be bothered to put the game on shelves, on magazine pages etc.
Yes, the whole store/boxes/crap model is outdated. I'd happily pay real money for games if I could actually download them at launch day, instead of waiting for ages for the stupid boxes to ship and arrive to stores. I paid for HL2, mostly because they allowed this. Yeah, steam is 'bad' or 'crappy' or whatever, but at least it works. I got the game on launch day, not a week late (hint: I don't live in the US), and I got it at a same price as the US customers got (no extra taxes, duties, shipping costs and other crap).
Use the time honored and honed by my youth trick of just returning it to Wal-Mart and saying the disk will not load. They give you an exact copy, you keep it, or return the unopened copy at another store for money or credit. Ahhh fond memories of youthful schenanigans.
Home of the midwest loser - www.say-10.net
Read the Terms of Use. The EULA allows the transfer of the GAME, but nowhere does it allow the transfer of the SERVICE.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
The OP did get the entirety of the Game, but not the account on the game servers, which is created after the fact, and is not part of the sale. In the same way the Game is useless without an account, so can the Game be transferred without it.
I am not a Lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but it seems fairly clear cut from a legal purspective that the OP got everything Blizzard sells in the store. Just because the Game has lost nearly all value due to the Activation Key being broken doesn't change that fact. If the OP has any gripes, it is with the seller, who sold them a lemon, not Blizzard.
Because [to my knowledge] it's illegal to forbid it.
At least around here small claims court cases cost $35 to file. If you sue a major corporation in one, no lawyers or company representatives will show up...it costs more to pay them to come (I went to a case where someone sued calvin klein). You may even get a judgement against the company, although that is unlikely. That doesn't mean anything will ever come of it, major companies often have tons of claims against them, their legal departments can tie things up forever and the money you spent would have been better spent buying a new copy. The only way things like this are taken seriously is through class action lawsuits.
With Final Fantasy XI, when I sold my copy I had to call in to customer service and have my billing info stripped from the account.
I had to leave the account active and send along my login and password with the used game. The person who bought the game had to login with my login and password and then enter thier billing info.
So maybe you can't use the code to create a new account, but you can log in to the existing account the seller had and then reactivate the subscription by setting up your billing info...
Remember the Diablo II players are famous for their acts of stupidity. They regularly get their CD-keys and accounts stolen.
Actually, the issue with D2 and several other games is that people would buy one copy of the game, open it, write down the CD Key, return it to some place like Wal-mart or Best Buy where they only do even exchanges for opened materials and repeat ad infinitum.
The retailers are supposed to report these returned CD Keys, but it never happens.
What?
This is absolutely not a good test case for unenforceability. Unenforceability is a defense for a consumer who does not have the option to view a contract. It does not apply to the drafter of the contract. Generally, if you are the drafter of an agreement you can't go back and say that it is unfair. Dude, your a first year attorney, don't post on slashdot (or anywhere else) with your company bio unless you are dead sure of what you are talking about and you are authorized to do so.
Sec. 13 - "This License Agreement shall be deemed to have been made and executed in the State of California without regard to conflicts of law provisions, and any dispute arising hereunder shall be resolved in accordance with the law of California. You agree that any claim asserted in any legal proceeding by one of the parties against the other shall be commenced and maintained in any state or federal court located in the State of California, County of Los Angeles, having subject matter jurisdiction with respect to the dispute between the parties."
Somebody really needs to teach you guys the BASICS of the US legal system...I took Tires Plus to small claims court. In St. Paul, MN it costs $60 to file. If they don't show up, you win by default. The loser pays the court fees.
Totally, completely, utterly wrong.
From the XP Pro EULA:
Transfer to Third Party. The initial user of the Product may make a one-time transfer of the Product to another end user. The transfer has to include all component parts, media, printed materials, this EULA, and if applicable, the Certificate of Authenticity. The transfer may not be an indirect transfer, such as a consignment. Prior to the transfer, the end user receiving the transferred Product must agree to all the EULA terms.
on my server (frostwolf), at least, they tried to compensate for the bugginess and downtime by giving us a free week on top of what we've already paid for - doesn't totally make up for it, but at least they're trying...
Choose your future, choose life...
But why would I want to do a thing like that?
Since the parent didn't provide proof, here's the relevant passage (it's the fourth paragraph):
"SOFTWARE Backup or Archiving. After You install the SOFTWARE into the permanent memory of a computer, You may keep and use the original disk(s) and/or CD-ROM (the "Storage Media") only for backup or archival purposes."
Actually, all the poster has to do is get the previous owner's login information. Once the authentication key is used, it is irrevocably tied to the account.
The way most people I know have done this in previous games is to delete all credit card information from their account, change the billing address to something random/anonymous, and change the password to something simple. The new user then logs in, changes everything to their own info, and restarts the account (if necessary).
Gamecards come with an authorization key for creating an account. You can use anyone's install media to put the game on your computer. Game cards are $30 for 60 days of play time and can be extended by adding the code from a new game card. --C
Section 1-E does not apply; I am not trying to transfer an account. Section 1-A does apply; I am a "you" trying to establish my "one user account". I am not the same "you" as the original owner. The key is not the account; the key is used to create an account. By section 3-B of the EULA, I am now the legal and sole owner of my key, so the original account is now using a key that does not belong to it. The fact that Blizzard apparently does not provide any way for the account owner to disassociate the key from the account when transferring ownership of the key is irrelevant.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
That argument is nothing but an excuse, unless the company has a lot of debt and needs cash up front to survive. An established player like Blizzard could easily charge a higher monthly fee while providing the client for free. In fact, that's how it's done for world of warcraft in Asia; the expensive box is an artifact of the western market. The only reason we have to buy expensive boxes is because the companies can get away with it.
And believe it or not, there are places that provide servers if you pay a monthly fee and don't provide your own hardware. It's a very common business model, hard to believe you've never seen it before.
Back to the original poster: The account transfer policy seems to be the same as other MMO's. You can only transfer ownership of the account if all physical materials (Including CD key) are transferred with it. You cannot create a new account with it, but the person you're getting the copy from should have given you the login and password.
Neither the EULA nor the ToU make any mention of the authentication key except that it is required to register an account. There is no mention of the first use of it invalidating it for future use, rendering the retail package useless after that first use.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Section 3-B includes transfer of the license, so section 5 does not apply. Section 5 only applies if you want to terminate the license, not transfer it.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
The creator/publisher/manufacturer got their cut for this instance of the product. When the original owner no longer wishes to use it, why shouldn't someone else be able to?
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Until I bought the game, I did not have access to read the EULA. Until I bought the game, I did not know the ToU existed or where to find it. Furthermore, there is nothing in either the EULA or the ToU that imposes the restriction that Blizzard is enforcing.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Who owns the key? The person who posses the physical document containing the key, unless that document were stolen, in which case the person it was stolen from.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
"Freeraft and battle net d had good intentions but they really shoudl hve put the effort to make somethign new instead of deriving somethign from someone else work without their permission. "
They weren't making a derivitave work. They were making an interoperable program. Yes - it's a significant difference.
Samba is a client/server that implements the Windows File Sharing protocol for Unix. I can use it to share files with Windows. It uses a Microsoft-designed protocol to talk to Microsoft software. Samba's programmers, though, have been careful to not use or look at Microsoft's source code - hence, it is not a derivative work. So, regardless of whether Microsoft may like to shut down projects that let people on other operating systems interact with Windows, they can't legally do so. (whether they can do so by technical means is a different question)
I would argue that battlenetd and freecraft fall in the same category. They are designed to be interoperable, but that doesn't make them a derived work. They are independently written software programs.
While I don't play WoW, I've been looking at buying a used one. I figured that the key issue would come up, so I did a little research on the WoW website, and found an interesting little entry.
a bl 01115p
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=
I'm not sure if it's useful, but hopefully it might spark some ideas.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Who said anything about eBay? Or PayPal, for that matter?
TFA doesn't say by what means the used software title was aquired, nor how payment was tendered.
For all we know, he traded a twelve-pack of beer for it with his next-door neighbor.
Get some sunshine. Ebay is not the only venue via which used items change hands.
Kid-proof tablet..
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=abl 01115p
This might fix your problems, however if I read correctly, if you dont have a receipt you pay an extra 10USD