Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Wizards of the Coast Sues Rumor Site

Posted by Zonk on from the they-were-doing-so-well-there-for-a-while dept.

foo fighter writes "Wizards of the Coast is suing the owner of MTG Salvation, a site that posts rumors and spoilers about upcoming releases of Magic: the Gathering. This suit has come as a disappointing and disturbing shock to Magic's large and diverse community and raises several questions too familiar to Slashdot readers: Do leaks of upcoming products really hurt sales of those products? Do these kind of lawsuits damage the companies initiating them more than they help?"

1 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Too different to compare, I think by Irvu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think that the more apt comparison would be between this and Apple. As you say a leaked image of a Magic Card cannot really be used by most players. Yes there are *some* who might print it out but those people are likely photocopying whole decks anyway so they are not really lost revenue (0 - 0 = 0). Similarly there is little competitive advantage in that competing game companies are not able to rush better products to market based upon this information, nor is anyone going to make a knock-off. Again, they would have anyway, just a few weeks later.

    I see this a lot like Apple's lawsuits over leaked Mac specs. The leaks didn't cost them anything, nor did they help their competitors in any way. All that they did was a) piss off Steve because the secret is out, and b) challenge "intellectual property".

    It is the latter that I think is at issue. Prima-donna execs are nothing new. Andrew Carnegie refused to have candid shots of his nose available publicly. But with the view that "intellectual property" is everything this kind of nonsense is growing. The lawsuit is not an outgorwth of actual harm but the illusory perception of "lost value" through lost secrets even though the actual value (selling cards) wasn't threatened in any way.

    The real question is, will this piss off anyone enough for them to stop buying Magic cards and, if this is the case will the company notice or will they blame "leak piracy" like the RIAA. Ironically Apple's suits haven't hurt their fanbase in any way while the RIAA, who is losing money but not as much as they claim, is hurting theirs.