Blizzard Sued By Game Guide Creator 285
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."
More reasons for repudiating copyright and IP (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The BS of the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [oreilly.com] got deep pockets!
Re:More reasons for repudiating copyright and IP (Score:5, Insightful)
It ties in that Blizzard will stifle any competition because it only wants itself to make money. Maybe Blizzard wants to release its own Game Guide. I, for one, hope Blizzard loses or else this may set precedent for others to sue publishers for producing Game Guides.
Protecting the Trademark (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Not infringement (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:More reasons for repudiating copyright and IP (Score:4, Insightful)
That's funny, actually, because I was looking up that quote a few weeks ago. I tend to think of it a bit differently: "The chief obstacle to the progress of an individual is democracy."
It ties in that Blizzard will stifle any competition because it only wants itself to make money. Maybe Blizzard wants to release its own Game Guide. I, for one, hope Blizzard loses or else this may set precedent for others to sue publishers for producing Game Guides.
The precedents set can affect more than game guides. Why isn't it illegal to do a review of a product? Why isn't it illegal to complain about a product? I'm sure there are cases where both were true.
Re:Protecting the Trademark (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. If the writer attributes the trademark and makes it clear for his readers that he does not own the World of Warcraft trademark, there is no infringement, therefore there is no possibility that Blizzard will "lose" their trademark.
It is no different than if someone writes about McDonald's or Home Depot. Both are trademarks. As long as its clear who owns the trademark, there is nothing there.
Re:Protecting the Trademark (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF is wrong with Blizzard? (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:More reasons for repudiating copyright and IP (Score:5, Insightful)
While I understand what you mean, you might want to avoid casual use of the term 'prior art' as it is a term of art in patent law, and this is essentially a copyright discussion.
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?
These are really two different questions. So long as the assemblage is creative and original, it's not a problem that many of the component elements are not. Dragons and knights and rescuing princesses and so on are all staples of the fantasy genre and are unprotected, but what you do with those elements may be perfectly worthy of a copyright. And there are a lot of ways you can put those parts together. Think of them as being like legos; the individual blocks aren't interesting, but what you do with them is. As for the name, that's basically just consumer protection. If I bought a bottle of soda with the word 'Coke' all over it, I don't want it to actually contain coffee or something.
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?
It's not wrong, per se. But it might be unwise. Until fairly late in the 19th century, US copyright law didn't include a derivative right. So, if you wrote a book, anyone else could translate that book into another language without needing permission or having to pay you, the original author. If we have this right, then that means more of the possible profit that can be made from a work is directed to the author. This increases the incentive he has to create and publish works, and one goal of the copyright system to cause works to be created and published. Of course, we must balance this against other goals of the system, such as having the least restrictive, if any, copyright law at all, and having the shortest copyright terms, and encouraging the creation and publication of derivative works by any author.
Intellectual property laws were originally created to protect artists and artists alone.
That's wrong in many regards. First, I would strongly encourage you to not use the term 'intellectual property.' It includes bodies of law such as trademarks and patents which have nothing to do with artists, and which have quite different reasons for existing. Second, copyright laws were not created to protect artists alone; they also protected publishers, but their actual goal was to serve the public interest by enticing authors and publishers to behave in certain ways beneficial to the public. Helping authors is just a means to an end; it's not our goal.
Think of cable television. A town that doesn't have cable will often give a monopoly on cable tv to a particular company for a term of years, in exchange for the company shouldering the cost of building the infrastructure. The goal of the town is not to have to pay one company that can charge monopoly prices. It is to get someone to build the cable tv infrastructure so that it can eventually be opened up to competition.
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.
That's a really bizarre statement.
The argument that invention and art would not occur without the force of copyright and IP is over.
I disagree. First, I at least have never felt that creation and invention wouldn't occur without copyrights and patents, respectively. Second, however, the quantity of those acts would likely decrease sharply. So we have to decide whether unrestricted competition or some degree of monopoly granting wil
Blizzard Is Looking Worse & Worse (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WTF is wrong with Blizzard? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Prima Game Guides? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF is wrong with Blizzard? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Protecting the Trademark (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More reasons for repudiating copyright and IP (Score:5, Insightful)
Except there is no precedent set unless the trial actually concludes. Most often something like this is dropped or settled out of court.
The real question is, can this guy afford to stay in the fight long enough to bring a case to conclusion?
The main reason a big company is willing to sue small ones frequently, is that even if the law doesn't support the big one, they can afford to outlast a small one so the little guy gives up without a fight. It isn't right, but it is the way it often goes.
Re:Just play Oblivion (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:Prima Game Guides? (Score:5, Insightful)
The sticking point for unauthorized guides is usually that the author has no access to the software or development team before it is released to the general public. Large publishers want to have a book on the shelves the day the software comes out, not 12 months later.
And it goes on... (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
yeah, i agree (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:More reasons for repudiating copyright and IP (Score:4, Insightful)
Aren't you anarcho-capitalists at least supposed to consider fraud to be a form of indirect force?
Re:yeah, i agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Like movie reviewers?
Copyright law was not written to prevent people from "making a buck." It's to prevent people from taking a buck away from the copyright holder. This book sounds like it's perfectly within the boundaries of fair use.
Re:Blizzard is right (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
So 3rd party software texts infringe copyright? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More reasons for repudiating copyright and IP (Score:5, Insightful)
His use of the WoW trademark appears to be nominative. And use of screenshots would be fair use.
Really, the copyright and trademark parts of the case seem open and shut in the guide author's favor. However, there is an interesting breach of contract claim that Blizzard could assert. I'm mostly interested to see how that works out. If it's like the bnetd case, it could be bad for the guide author.
Bad Prima Guides (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blizzard is (not) right (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:yeah, i agree (Score:1, Insightful)
"Derivative Works" (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:"Derivative Works" (Score:2, Insightful)
This would be just as ridiculous an argument as classifying a movie review as a "derivative" work because someday I might write a review of my own movie.
Contrary to some folks interpretation, you don't "own" the rights to your work. If you truly "owned" something, then it would always be your property. However, copyright doesn't work that way. You are however granted limited distribution privileges of your creative works for the purposes of providing economic incentive to create those works for a (supposedly) limited amount of time, after which time the author no longer has such priveleges.
Limits to these distribution priveleges include Fair Use and First Sale doctrines.
The problem with so many issues today centers around the flat out misconception of how "Intellectual Property" works. And folks that do know, will tell you that it's in fact not property, but rather priveleges granted by the government. And those priveleges do have limits.
If I want to write a novel set in the Farscape Universe, I'm free to do so right now. I just can't distribute that work for another 75 years or so.
Blizzard is welcome to make money off it's products, but there are limits as to how far copyright laws extend exclusivity priveleges.