EULA Confusion w/ Used Copies of WoW?

egburr asks: "I just purchased a used retail box of World of Warcraft. After reading the EULA in the manual and the Terms of Use, I expected to be up and playing quickly. I soon ran into a problem. I haven't even installed the software yet, since the first thing I have to do is go online and create a user account and then subscribe to play. Simple enough? I thought so too, until I tried entering the Authentication Key found on the CD case. This produced an error that my key had already been used. Note that it says 'already been used,' not 'currently in use.'" Note that section 3B in the EULA explicitly grants its users the ability to transfer the physical property and "all of your rights and obligations under the License Agreement", presumably including the Authentication Key which is needed when creating a new account. What Blizzard expressly disallows is the transfer of accounts, according to Section 1E of their Terms of Use, which is not at issue here. Apparently, Blizzard is allowing each Authentication Key to be used only once, preventing anyone with a used copy of the game from creating a new account. Is Blizzard violating the terms of their own EULA? "I have contacted Blizzard about this and have had a very interesting conversation with the Billing department, first by phone and then by email.

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.

Comments

Also considering the availability

[booyah]

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.

Re:Also considering the availability

[Coneasfast]

you can take a look at the bbb report for vivendi

summary: rating = F

A rating of F means that we strongly question the company's reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law's licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company's industry is known to us for its fraudulent business practices.

Re:Why not just buy a new copy instead of old?

[Propagandhi]

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..

Re:Why don't they just make a new authentication k

[Jarnis]

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).

Re:Use their own system against them

[Peyna]

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.

Missing or non-functional key..

[lionchild]

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.

http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowbilling/?id=a bl 01115p

I'm not sure if it's useful, but hopefully it might spark some ideas.

Uh... Hey, kids.

[adolf]

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.