ARTICLE: Massive judgment in WoW copyright infringement case

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redflameent

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Massive judgment in WoW copyright infringement case

This doesn't sit right with me. Yes, Blizzard was right to persue legal action. Yes, operating a private server and collecting payments from its players does constitute copyright infringement (I view it similar to buying a DVD, then copying that DVD several times over and selling those copies to people at local markets or stores). However, the part that doesn't feel right to me is the judge's ruling that what constitutes copyright infringement is simply not following all of the terms of the EULA. I've read through many EULAs and most follow along the same formula for use. In many games, decompiling the data is a violation of the EULA, but that does not necessarily mean copyright infringement. What if you are doing that to create your own user content like multi-player maps? Ah, that's right. That's copyright infringement as well. What if you want to learn to work with the engine with some of the tools provided? Sometimes that's not covered by the EULA in explicit language, so maybe that could be construed by someone as copyright infringement.

In my view, the judge should have ruled it copyright infringement for the act of running a private server with intent to collect payments from its players.
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Now getting to what I think... I tend to agree with this quote. When I first played WoW, I was all for thge private server but then I realized what this does to Blizzard as a company and I started playing regular WoW. I will say that what the judge did may have been a strech given how the laws are written and not that specific. But if you run a server and make 3 mill, I can see the issue.

What Blizzard should do is allow you to level privately, like a campaign, then there should be a small file with your character information that Blizzard can upload to one of their servers if you pay a fee. Yes, this would probably make it less of an MMO, but then you will be able to still play somewhat without the luxuries if dungeons, battlegrounds or raids. With that in mind, maybe then if you want the better gear, you will pay to play.

I know that it may not make sense but when I was introduced to WoW, I thought at first that it was absurd to have to pay $15 a month on a game that I dropped $100 bucks on. Am I an advocate for the private server, not at all. I do believe that once you buy a product, you should be able to do what you want as long as you aren't using it to profit or make a gain somewhere. Intellectual property is a massive grey area when it comes to copyrights.
 
I'm not real experienced in this sort of thing, but I think it's safe to assume that this judgment of $89 million will never be paid off. It's to essentially make sure the company is out of business and to set precedent for other similar cases.

Basically, you make an example out of the first one, and others will think twice.
 
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Interesting stuff. In this particular case, it's pretty clear the the private server place was doing something blatantly wrong and them being punished is fair game. But EULA constraints on software can be awfully constraining, and it's interesting to compare it to, say, mechanical products instead. I mean, no one would accept a lease agreement on a car that prohibited you from, say, delivering Domino's using that car. And that's an analogy along the lines of licensing/leasing rather than buying a product. It's weird to think that when you're buying a box of software, that you're not really buying it ... you're just buying a license to use that software (along with, incidentally, a ready-to-install copy of that software). But that's how it is.

Software/data IP on one hand is so vulnerable to technology (as in, death of the published music business) ... but on the other hand, the IP rights that firms retain for themselves is almost breathtaking. If you buy a lawnmower, and you want to disassemble that lawnmower, then go at it (albeit voiding your warranty). But don't even think about disassembling software. I honestly don't know what's "right" ... it's just interesting how different it is, and how these are issues that 50 years ago you couldn't even contemplate existing.
 
I feel that if someone buys an item, then (with in certain constraints... i.e. not changing it and selling it as your own) that item is now property of the consumer. I feel that this rule goes for many products, including software.

I know why Blizzard limits usage of World of Warcraft to their own servers... its for an additional $15 per month - it's a goldmine.

I think that since I bought my copy of WoW, I should be able to do what I want with the game. I gave Blizzard the money they wanted for the game (and the expansions), now give me my software. :P
 
Odale said:
I gave Blizzard the money they wanted for the game (and the expansions), now give me my software. :P
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That's the very thing, you didn't buy the software, you bought a license to use the software. Kind of like if you buy/download music ... you don't OWN those lyrical Clay Aiken stylings, he/his label do ... you just own the right to listen to the music. If you buy prescripton medicine, you don't own that medicine (in terms of brand, formula, etc) ... only the right to use it to medicate yourself. It's all really tricky stuff, this IP business, in terms of determining what's right and fair. I'm not saying the EULAs in general and WoW's in particular are defensible in their entirety, but it definitely isn't as simple as buying a plastic pot.

Really, WoW/Bliz make things HARD on themselves by having the relatively wide-open door for the addon community as well. Clearly there's incentive for Bliz to allow thousands of great programmers to work for free to make their gamer better and more addictive for players, it's not altruism. But I think part of the cost is the game's open-ness in some ways means that they are absolutely draconian in defending the lines in the sand that they HAVE drawn, to avoid losing control of the product entirely.
 
Odale said:
I feel that if someone buys an item, then (with in certain constraints... i.e. not changing it and selling it as your own) that item is now property of the consumer. I feel that this rule goes for many products, including software.

I know why Blizzard limits usage of World of Warcraft to their own servers... its for an additional $15 per month - it's a goldmine.

I think that since I bought my copy of WoW, I should be able to do what I want with the game. I gave Blizzard the money they wanted for the game (and the expansions), now give me my software. :P
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I am with you on this. If I want to alter something to learn the process of programming, I should have that right since I bought the game. Whem lisences come up, I always bring up Micro$oft and how they are constantly in court over this issue and lose because a product that is bought really shouldn't depend on a serial number to run iit. It should be able to run right after install without any inputs needed. EULAs are joke.
 
If they wanted you to have the software to be able to use wouldn't they make a client for that? Have they? Usually games have a toolset or creator outside of the game to go mess with all the programming stuff. Have they made one of these available and im just unaware? Or do people just hack into the game and use the software form the game part. I know they had those tools in Starcraft and the warcraft games but not for wow.
 
I am sure there isn;t but let;s say I was a game programmer and I wanted to peek at the game coding. I bought the game, I should be able to do so without any issue. As long as I wasn't going to take what I did and sell it for profit, then I don't see the problem.
 
redflameent said:
I am sure there isn;t but let;s say I was a game programmer and I wanted to peek at the game coding. I bought the game, I should be able to do so without any issue. As long as I wasn't going to take what I did and sell it for profit, then I don't see the problem.
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aha, herein lies the problem, other people were profiting off wow, or interfering in their business rights as developers of the game, the concept, the property. they have a right to protect their work. just think for example, if anyone took a song, downloaded it, rewrote the words and resold it to the public, how would you feel as the artist who created that music. if you tinker with it on your computer fine, but you can't go out and sell it. there are laws to protect their work for a reason, and if you ever create something, to protect your work for a reason.
 
It's just so complicated. Both Odale and Redflame are pointing out "so long as I don't resell it for a profit." That would seem like an easy line drawn in the sand to enforce ... mess around with it all you want, just don't profit off of it. But what if you see some cool code in there that (intentionally or unintentionally) finds it into some project that you're working on? Then there's an IP issue. It can be very gray. If we're talking cars ... it's a different kind of property, and the notion of opening up the hood and poking around inside is universally accepted. And the patent system can do a good job of ensuring that if I see a patent-protected widget X inside a Ford that you won't see it show up inside a Chevy the next year without license fees being made. But you can't patent blocks of code the same way ... and so the firewall needs to go up much earlier and more drastically in terms of not letting you "poke around the under the virtual hood" of software.

There's no clear answers. I can see why Blizz is paranoid. But I also see the EULA as draconian. But I also don't have any alternatives to propose that aren't like swiss cheese.
 
The re-selling for a profit theory doesn't hold water either. Hacking the code of a program so that it no longer requires some form of authentication, making copies of it (either digital or physical) and distributing them for free is just as illegal as re-selling it, and costs the IP holders the same amount of money. You can't allow people access to the code and just hope that they won't do anything bad with it. I remember a couple years ago a game (can't remember the name) was released without any DRM. It was online playable, and within weeks they had 200k people on their servers and had only sold 20k copies. That is not going to work for anyone. The company didn't make any money so they couldn't maintain their servers, and so the people who bought the game fair-and-square couldn't play it. DRM is a necessary evil, and there will always be people who will break the DRM. The whole idea is to not make it easy, and to be transparent about it.
 
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