First Rule Of World Of Warcraft: You Don't Talk About World Of Warcraft
from the say-what? dept
Gregory A. Beck from Public Citizen Litigation Group writes "Public Citizen Litigation Group has just filed a lawsuit against Blizzard, Vivendi Universal Games (Blizzard's parent company), and the Entertainment Software Association on behalf of a small eBay seller. Our client (the eBay seller) wrote an unofficial gaming guide to World of Warcraft called "The Ultimate World of Warcraft Gold & Leveling Guide." After he began selling an electronic version of his guide on eBay, Blizzard, Vivendi, and the Entertainment Software Association began repeatedly invoking the notice and takedown provisions of section 512 of the DMCA to have the eBay auctions terminated on the grounds that the guide infringed Blizzard's copyright. Our client filed a DMCA counternotice and, because the companies did not respond within the fourteen days required by statute, eBay reinstated the auctions. But even after that, the companies continued to file notices of claimed infringement, ignoring the prior counternotice, until the seller's eBay account was suspended. In addition, Vivendi's lawyer has threatened to sue if he continues selling his guide.Vivendi's position is apparently that merely writing about their game infringes their copyright even if the author incorporates none of the company's text or storyline. Although the e-book does contain a limited number of screen shots to explain combat techniques, this is well within the bounds of fair use. If Vivendi is correct, then selling a how-to book about Microsoft Word would infringe Microsoft's copyright, especially if the book contained one or more screenshots of Word's user interface. We think this cannot be the law. Big companies often use the DMCA and eBay's "Verified Rights Owner" -- or "VeRO" -- program to harass small sellers of competing products. With the hundreds of thousands of notices of claimed infringement it receives, eBay is not capable of examining the merits of each individual claim. As a result, eBay terminates targeted auctions without question and small sellers who can't afford to defend themselves are left without recourse. Even a DMCA counternotice is ineffectual if a company can simply ignore it and continue terminating auctions at will."
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"small business owners have not donated enough money to the RNC to warrant consideration. Until such time as donations meet a reasonable level, the RNC will continue to treat small and medium-sized businesses with the same disregard it has for consumers."
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Re: RNC Memo
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Jesus. I just lost a lot of respect for Blizzard and Vivendi.
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Re: actually..
I also don't think he created those images of onyxia...
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Hmmm...
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Re:
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... I think not. If i got banned from being good at WoW (which won't happen because I'm awful) I think it would simply be time to go play another game.
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Re: Hmmm...
But the article does say "Blizzard, Vivendi, and the Entertainment Software Association began repeatedly invoking the notice and takedown provisions ..."
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I guess I'll skip and find another game!!!
LOL, this is just plain STUPID.
So that means - each time someone posts on their forums and uses the game name - they should sue them too!!!
and I'm with you I used to have a TON of respect for Blizzard, but now I have NONE.
Asses.
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vivendi getting to be like sony?
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Re: vivendi getting to be like sony?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=Spore
I just quit WoW... (except is isn't out yet /cry)
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The result of guides like this result in a large amount of gold suddenly appearing on the servers, disruting the economies on them, which will probably end in people cancelling their accounts, something blizzard and vivendi are going to fight tooth and nail. So whats the easiest way for them to prevent this from starting in the first place? Stop guides like this one from being made and sold.
Bringing the DMCA into play is a pretty bad move on their part, but is by far the quickest and easiest move for them.
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Re:
Following your logic, Vivendi and Blizzard should take down websites that contains any information about the game because it could be used to show people how to farm gold on the servers. Which, of course, everyone sells online for cash. Forums are particular nasty too. Who knows what gold making method they'll come up with next.
Assuming the guide isn't full of exploits, what's the problem? It probably goes into detail of legitimate ways to play the game. Are people not supposed to get gold the most efficient way if they want? And if these methods are putting too much gold into the economy, Blizzard will go in and tweak things. Guides don't ruin the economy.
Now selling these guides for money, well, that's another story we'll see played out.
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ps. get a real mmorpg game
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Re: haa yeah
ps. your wicked ways have been revealed...repent or feel the wraith or everquestttttt...cough pew pah
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Re: Re: haa yeah
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Re: Re: haa yeah
Blizzard has some strict rules in their EULA - if you agree to them (need to to play) then they can hold you to them. Makes sense to me, but I'm not a lawyer - just some dumb consumer.
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Re: Re: Re: haa yeah
You'd have thought they'd put all their effort into making EQ II playable, but apparently not. Not that I'm complaining.
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lacking general culture and common sense in US cou
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Copywright Infringment?
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If that's the case, then perhaps they should start surfing the net and slamming webmasters for using their images on sites.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=world+of+warcraft&btnG=Google+Search
Wow, about 59,400,000 hits! Their lawers will be busy!
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Infringers!!
i really dont know... i shot a video of Camile Valesco (the one from american idol) back in 2002, it was a quick smile and pretty random, out at the Maui iHop. anyways i posted the video I PERSONALLY took, and i got an email from YouTUBE.com saying that the video was removed because American Idol said i was Copyright Infringing!! WTF! i shot the video WAY before she was even on American Idol! they are the copyright infringers!!!!
so its true. even if we arent infringing, they push us around.
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Re: Infringers!!
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Vivendi, Sue me.
- oh no i didn't. yes i did. i wrote about it.
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WOW Copyright Infringement by TECH DIRT.
HMMMM.... I wonder. The guy should sell an address envelope and postage to all of people who want it, and when you buy the envelop, he includes a copy of the WOW Guide Free of Charge.
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Smoke Screen
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Smoke Screen
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Tactic
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I played WoW for about 6 months.
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thanks for the support
When I started talking to my lawyer I had no intentions in my mind i'd get any relief from it I just wanted to sell my guides on ebay.
Just let this be a lesson that you can't let the bully pick on you forever.
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I hate these people
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Your case would hold up in court, I'm sure of it. You didn't copy anything, there are no anti-video laws (though recording audio without prior concent is illegal) and these people weren't worried about it enough to contact you formally because they're bullshitting you -- not to mention they don't know what "copyright" means.
Just tell them to buzz off, or you'll see them in court. Maybe you'll get lucky like the judge who made some guy pay the FSF for wasting their time with the whole "GPL is illegal" bit.
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Brian Kopp is GREEDY IMO!
All I see is someone that takes advantage of other's ideas for their own personal gain. Pretty sad really.
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All I see is someone that takes advantage of other's ideas for their own personal gain. Pretty sad really."
What the hell are you talking about? He didn't take advantage of anyone's ideas at all, nor did he take any profits from Blizzard or Vivendi. If anything, he HELPed them because you'd need to BUY the game before the manual was of any use.
Profit has nothing to do with this. The man wrote some things, copied nothing, and sold it. Thats perfectly legit.
By your reasoning, should PC Gamer be sued beyond recovery because it reviews and makes strategy guides for games which were made by someone else? HMM? Thought not.
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I also don't think he created those images of onyxia..."
Read the former posts, would you?
The use of screen shots are protected by Fair Use.
Using a name for somethign in direct reference to something else is not ripping it off, and is in NO way copyright infringing -- Nothing was *COPIED*
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Bring out the Horde! Down with Vivendi!
Hopefully didn't infringe any copyrights above :p
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LOL ROFL LMAO
this is kinda like that on video about the guy who wrote "Lies and the lying liars who tell them" lol
what happens is this guy makes a book that says lies and the lieing liars that tell them and on the front has a FOX news reporter. So FOX being the dumbasses it is decides to sue the author saying hes trying to trick the public into beliving the book was written by fox since the book has the picture of 2 FOX newreporters on it. FOX lost and now theres a funy movie about it. google it and find the movie then blockbuster it :) its awesome
this is my summary of it incase u guys dont want to read the long/full version of the article below
http://www.alternet.org/story/16157/
^^
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thats bogus
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WTF BLIZZARD
BTW my lvl 60s are UBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Blizzard, don't offend those who pay you
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and another thing...
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u suk
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man...
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hacks
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What's eBay's problem in all of this?
BTW, I've looked around on the 'net for any other news of this. What's the status of the lawsuit?
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Spirit of the law...
The dude was making money through the use of Bliz's product. It's just not right.
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