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Blizzard Sued By Game Guide Creator
Gamespot reports on a suit brought by a game guide creator against Warcraft-maker Blizzard Entertainment. The two parties will be going to court because of an attempt by Blizzard to quash a guide the plaintiff created for the World of Warcraft MMORPG. Offered electronically through eBay, the company claims that the guide creator is infringing on their IP. From the article: "Kopp's complaint argues that his book does not infringe on any of the companies' copyrights for several reasons: The book presents a disclaimer on its first page about its 'unauthorized' nature, contains no copyrighted text or storylines from the game, and makes "fair use" of selected screenshots under copyright law, the complaint said."
Here's another person creating his own art based on the prior art of someone else. The copyright and IP laws make no sense to me -- why is it OK to protect the overall look of a game or the name when pieces of the game are taken directly from thousands of games before it? Why is it wrong for someone to use their own labor to make a product (even a direct knock off) and go and sell it?
I believe in true freedom and true competition. Both are what is best for the consumers in the market and the producers as well. If someone is willing to spend their own time and their own labor creating something with their own hands, I see no reason why the product shouldn't be allowed to sell. I personally tend to buy some items from large companies just because I feel I've gotten better quality products, but there are many items I won't buy from a big company because I prefer the unique feel of the item.
Intellectual property laws were originally created to protect artists and artists alone. Blizzard is not an artist, it is a co-op of artists. The idea that a co-op can have more rights than an individual is ridiculous -- individuals have rights, co-ops are just groups of individuals trying to market a huge variety of products together. Each artist at Blizzard has their own art they've created, and they should worry individually about making the best produt they can at the lowest price. That is competition.
Making a knockoff or a product that supports another is the best part of competition -- it gives the market a choice in goods of varying prices and quality, and it also allows others to make a product better by supplementing it with add-ons, upgrades, modifications and third party support services. Can you see Google suing someone for writing a guide to using Google? Wouldn't that guide give Google free marketing and promotion for their product?
Blizzard is run by MBAs, I guess, not artists. These "educated" businessmen don't see the value of free promotion; they should be taking advantage of this guy's supplementary art by promoting his product just as he's promoting theirs. They can both profit, and the consumers will walk away with the products they want at a price they're willing to pay. That is competition, and that is freedom.
The argument that invention and art would not occur without the force of copyright and IP is over. We see proof here that people can't create something based on previous work (as every work is) because the cartels with the power of the legal industry are the ones controlling the law -- the law meant to keep opportunities open, not close them off.
I don't think everything about the DMCA is wrong. But I do think that it has no boundaries and can be openly interpreted. I believe this Act needs to be reformed before it is renewed and that it should be better defined. The internet has developed far past our wildest imaginations and no act passed in 1998 could account for all the legal caveats of it.
I believe my hatred for the DMCA falls just under my hatred for the Patriot Act.
And that's saying a lot.
Hey, with the DMCA, anything's possible! Well, what do you say Microsoft? O'Reilly's got deep pockets!
My work here is dung.
Reagrdless of whether the actions taken by Blizzard against the guide creator were warranted based upon his actions, the simple fact of current Trademark law is:
If you don't actively protect it, you no longer own it.
Basically, if Blizzard became aware of this guy using the World of Warcraft trademark for personal profit (which he clearly did), then they are obligated by law to try to make him stop, or they lose their trademark.
Blizzard's action here isn't about keeping down the little guy; it's about protecting themselves from the bigger guys.
Doesn't make it just, or fair -- but their action is reasonable considering the nature of today's IP laws.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
attempts to trade off the substantial goodwill and recognition that Blizzard has built up in connection with its World of Warcraft product.
Yep. And it is perfectly within the boundaries of copyright law for someone to do so, provided they don't infringe on a trademark, create a derivative product or republish copyrighted material that is not a fair use.
From the article it sounds like this is a work of non-fiction, written to help people improve their knowledge of the game. It also sounds like "big company (that makes over $80M a MONTH in subscription revenue) uses copyright law as a club against entrepreneur." As long as all trademarks and copyrights are attributed, there's no infringement here. Sorry.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
While I despise Blizzard, and no longer play WoW due to Queues and generally unreliable service (as compared to every other MMO on the market) I can't agree with this lawsuit.
The Jackass who's filing this suit is one of those slimeballs that scrapes freely available information (the kind you can get from any number of free websites that do not charge for it) and packages it up so he can sell it for a rediculous fee.
Why anyone would by crap like that when you can just look it up on the web I have no idea.
If he's successful at his lawsuit, I'm sure he'll try to sue Allakhazam's, and every other free game guide site out there for "interfering with his revenue stream".
And to be clear, Blizzard's not the one harassing in court here. It is the GAME GUIDE writer suing Blizzard.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Blizzard has been making some moves that make it look like one of those big ugly soul-less corporations that we all hate so much. I will be much more hesitant to buy any of their products. A company doesn't have to be open source for me to support it but Blizzard has become arrogant and unapologetic when it comes to its customers and the little poeple in general.
The Jackass who's filing this suit is one of those slimeballs that scrapes freely available information (the kind you can get from any number of free websites that do not charge for it) and packages it up so he can sell it for a rediculous fee.
Why anyone would by crap like that when you can just look it up on the web I have no idea.
Meh. I can download Shakespeare for free from all over the net. But I also bought a hardback collection of his work. Just because you wouldn't buy something is no reason to denigrate people who would, or people who create things for them.
And to be clear, Blizzard's not the one harassing in court here. It is the GAME GUIDE writer suing Blizzard.
Well apparently Blizzard kept issuing complaints to Ebay that resulted in the guy being unable to sell any of his guides there. So arguably they were harassing him out of court, and he's decided to go to court to protect himself.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I'm guessing that Blizzard has some kind of exclusive deal for guides through a publisher and is finding that competing guides violate their copyright? Could that be the case? It still doesn't make much sense to me though. I mean look at MS Office, there are dozens of books that teach users to use Office. Did each of these book publishers have to get permission from MS to produce it?
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
This guy is trying to make a buck, so be it. Mabey his guide is good, mabey it sucks but who cares? There is more at risk than just that.
Does this "atmosphere" in Oblivion consist of characters being played by other people around the world that you can interact with?
/yell about a leet sword they found or what a faggot that troll over there is.
:P
Unfortunately, the characters in Oblivion use English properly, spell their words correctly, speak in complete sentences and never
I know, it ruins the atmosphere but somehow I manage to enjoy it
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
... In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
Is a guide for a game trying to be a game? I think not. It is a book about using a product that you have already paid for.
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
What the guide is using are basically the mechanics in the game, known and discovered by many gamers.
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
Apart from a few screenshots in the guide, he is using his own writing.
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Will the guide stop people from buying the game? No! In fact, it is very unlikely that anybody who doesn't own the game would even look at such a book. Of course, it might compete with their official guide, but that is a seperate issue, because he doesn't use material from that guide, but from the original game.
Ebay's policy is like that because they can't research every situation of potential copyright infringement, so they close down auctions when they get complaints from what they believe to be respectable sources (such as the IP holder Blizzard).
Blizzard hase done wrong by trying to make them believe there was copyright infringement where there was none.
I have been able go to my local bookstore and buy guides to games for years. I'm sure I can go find some kind of guide for WoW if I wanted to. What gets me about this case is why Blizzard all of a sudden goes after the little guy selling a couple of hundred books on Ebay when this kind of thing has been common practice for years.
It's basically the same things magazines do when giving you tips for using computer programs, discuss strategies for "Dungeons and Dragons", or (*gasp*) write guides for computer games.
I guess I have to side with Blizz on this one.
Sounds like the guy basically just published and is trying to sell the data that's available almost everywhere on thottbot.com or wow.allakhazam.com (for example), which Blizz doesn't seem to object to.
So what's their beef? Probably that he's trying to make a buck off THEIR IP. I agree with them. If he just put it up for download as a free pdf, I bet that they wouldn't have any beef with it.
-Styopa
The difference between all these other publishers and this one guy is that all these publishers do one thing first: that is ask Blizzard's permission.
It may be true that others asked for permission (actually just one AFAIK, which is Prima, who has the rights to publish the "Official Guide"), but it's certainly not required. I don't have to get permission to write a book on how to use MS Excel, and have it published. That's not the point of copyright law. I can write the book, include screenshots and descriptions of how to use the interface, etc. It's fair use. It's not stealing anything from MS. It's simply describing how to use something effectively. He's doing the same with the WoW guide.
Not to defend blizzard here, but look at every other brand, you can't take them and start selling them as your own under any copyright law without the "used with permission" clause.
He's not selling anything that belongs to Blizzard. From what I've seen, he has properly attributed the material and trademarks that are used. There is no reasonable chance of anyone mistaking who owns the marks, and he's not trying to confuse anyone. He even notes on the first page that the guide is unauthorized.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
So does this mean that if I write a tutorial textbook on how to create awesome chart macros in Excel, I would be infringing on Microsofts copyright on MS Excel? Sounds like BS to me, and shortsighted BS at that.
As far as I'm concerned, anything that offers an alternative to the mostly-useless Prima "official" game guides is an improvement. I've always thought the whole Prima game guide deal was a big scam to get more money from consumers for basic information that can be easily found elsewhere and doesn't contain any real insight, tricks or valuable tips.
It is not necessary to receive permission to publish a work. If that were so, every review that negatively commented on a movie or a book would be 86'd. It would be impossible to comment on any work without making direct references to it.
As far as your capitalist comment, a company would only allow permission if the work would favorably impact their bottom line.
Lastly, you most certainly can use a "Brand" when selling a product of your own, as long as you make note of whom that "Brand" belongs to, and correctly make attributions. If I say "Cleans 10% better then Tide(TM)", I'm perfectly within my rights to do so. I know you've all seen the commercials, for example, that say Oust is more effective in cleaning airborne bacteria then Lysol.
This guy wasn't attempting to take WoW and start selling it as his own. He created a work of his own that made attributions to any brands, trademarks, and copyrights of the respective owners. Now, if Blizzard had come out with a guide of it's own saying "How to make Phat Gold and Other Farming Techniques" and the author basically repackaged and resold it, then that would be different.
The author is likely to lose not based off technical grounds, but rather from a lack of resources.
I'm no lawyer, but I'm willing to bet Blizzard is working under the derivative works clause of the Copyright Act. In essence, "derivative works" means that I own the rights not just to what I have created but also to what I have not yet created.
For example: If I write an science fiction novel with original characters, settings, etc., I own not only the story I have written but also the characters and the settings I have written about. I can create further works based on those characters and settings, which promotes the original purpose of copyright law (at least as I understand it).
If, on the other hand, I want to write a novel set in the Farscape universe, I can't just go out and write the story. For one thing, someone else owns that universe--and aside from the capital they stand to lose if I write and publish something set in their universe, they also stand to lose the intellectual integrity. What would Farscape look like if any schmo could publish material about it?
That's what I think Blizzard is protecting here--not just its right to make money off its product, but the ability to make sure people who participate in WOW are getting information that's at least somewhat accurate.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.