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'Warcraft' maker sued for blocking sales of unofficial guide
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Filed Thursday in a California federal court, the complaint (click here for PDF) alleges that Blizzard Entertainment, its parent company Vivendi Universal, and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) were wrong to order eBay to terminate auctions of "The Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide," a book penned by 24-year-old Brian Kopp of Bronson, Fla.
The multiplayer online game of wizards, warriors and monsters has now attracted a following of 6 million subscribers worldwide since it debuted in 2004--among them, active virtual guilds.
During several months beginning last August, Kopp sold several hundred copies of his guide, which contains tips on playing the game and accumulating points, at roughly $15 apiece. Weeks after his first auction went live, Blizzard, Vivendi, and the ESA began sending repeated takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), asking eBay to yank the auctions because of copyright and trademark infringement concerns. The auction giant's general policy is to halt auctions when it receives such complaints and to suspend a user's account after it racks up a certain number of warnings.
Kopp filed counternotices protesting the infringement claims. Because the companies did not respond to the documents within 14 days, eBay was free under the DMCA to reinstate his auctions, which it did. But by November, eBay had accumulated enough takedown warnings from the companies to warrant suspending Kopp's account. He restarted his sales under a new username, which quickly earned suspension, too.
The companies went on to threaten copyright and trademark infringement action against Kopp. In one message quoted in the complaint, a Blizzard executive said Kopp could not lawfully sell a guide that "attempts to trade off the substantial goodwill and recognition that Blizzard has built up in connection with its World of Warcraft product." He also dismissed Kopps' claims that his book was solely meant for "educational" value, saying it clearly had a commercial purpose.
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.In effect, if the video game industry's actions are upheld, "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," said Paul Levy of the public-interest advocacy group Public Citizen, which joined in filing the suit on behalf of Kopp. "We think this cannot be the law."
The case points to a broader problem, Levy said: large companies that send takedown notices with abandon to eBay and jeopardize the prosperity of smaller sellers.
The suit seeks three major forms of relief: monetary compensation to cover, among other things, profits lost from the halted sales; an injunction preventing the entities from interfering with Kopp's book sales; and a judgment that his book is protected by the First Amendment and doesn't interfere with intellectual-property rights.
Kopp has continued to sell the product through a personal Web site and plans to continue doing so indefinitely, according to the complaint.
Representatives from Blizzard, Vivendi and the ESA did not immediately respond to interview requests Friday.
See more CNET content tagged:
Blizzard Entertainment, auction, complaint, DMCA, eBay Inc.
55 comments
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copywritten material you plan to use! DUH!
mark d.
"Those clowns in Hollywood are simply out of control."
They are in Irvine, CA not Hollywood.
"Their level of greed and corruption is simply astounding," Greed? ok I will give that to you, corruption? I am not sure I see that.
"not to mention twisted politics." Let me guess the trolls are actually commies.
"And how shortsighted to deny the publication of a book that promotes your product for free! Duhh!" Duhh? they have 6 million users right now, are yout telling me that a non user will buy this game because they saw the fan made gameguide on ebay? You have got to be kidding me right? This is about leeching off one of the biggest videogame hits of all time, not a effort by fans to "promote it".
95% of what you posted is just wrong, wierd or silly. The other 5% is at best debatable.
Its different if the author unfairly blasts the subject. That can be brought to court.
My two cents.
So, back to "unfairly". Pretty tough word to define, legally. I would propose that your statement would be more correct to use words like "slanderous", "libelous" or even "factually incorrect".
Bottom line: Highly negative reviews of copyrighted works are legal.
mark d.
of what is being said, I do have to say that Brian Kopp is guilty of
doing the same thing to others that he claims Blizzard and
Vivendi are doing to him. I had put an instruciton guide on
auction using eBay myself, only days later to see that Brian Kopp
had used the Vero system to have my guide taken down,
claiming that I had infringed on his copyright (it wasn't his in the
first place, at least if you agree with this article, it was
Blizzard's). I had made several attempts to discuss this further,
using eBay as a mediator, only to find that Brian Kopp was
dodging every email and remained unavailable. I waited a few
weeks and put my guide up for a second time. Again, it was
taken down and I was given Brian Kopp's email by eBay in order
to "hash" things out. Would you guess? Mr. Kopp again dodged
my emails. I have since given up on eBay as they were no help
when I explained to them that he was evasive and unavailable. It
was a very negative experience dealing with Mr. Kopp and I can
only guess that he has whats coming to him.
First off, it seems that ANYONE?? can just ask eBay to obstruct some other seller's auction just by asking?? It would have been interesting to see what eBay would have done if YOU made the same claim about Kopp's book as he apparently did to yours!
Secondly, if you can PROVE Kopp's actions against you, then you might be able to strengthen Blizzard's case to show that Kopp is doing exactly what he claims to be a victim of!
People certainly do act strangely, all in the pursuit of the illustrious dollar bill!
banned as well. I did however log on under a different ISP and
change all my personal information. Now, if I used eBay as my
sole form of income, as Brian Kopp claims he does, I wonder if
he'd have liked receiving a lawsuit in the mail?
Stardock is by far the most gamer friendly company I've heard of. They don't use copy-protection, not because they want ppl to copy their game, but because it's not what gamers want.
Support these sort of companies, not the companies that are too big to care what gamers want over their all important profits.
that gold farmed in the game can then be sold, literally, to other
players for real money. The buyer then climbs the ladder in the
game without having earned his status. So, what Kopp's tip
sheet does is provide insider information on a form of cheating.
Blizzard would prefer that players play by the rules.
Is it copyright infringement? Unclear. But, I think that Kopp is
damaging Blizzard's interest in its intellectual property. A game
in which cheaters rule is less attractive.
I haven't seen the guide (book is much too respectful), but I did
visit Brian Kopp's site. The most notable aspects are:
" He can barely read and write.
" His goal is to make money. REAL money. The objective of
selling his product to gold farmers who will then resell the game
gold for REAL money is barely masked. There is nothing
"educational" about what Kopp is doing.
Personally, I wouldn't want to use a guide that I didn't have to pay for - it would probably be a load of crap.
And what's $15! It's not like it's going to break the bank.
seems to me that there should be no law against Kopp or anyone
else selling something which doesn't violate any copyrights.
Frankly, I don't see what the big deal is from Blizzard's perspective
- they should want any and all guides to be made available.
You say that all this information is freely available elsewhere on the web which is also true about any piece of software, and yet there are many "how-to" guides being sold in every bookstore. Are you saying that their authors are also "greedy" and should just give away that information?
The authors are providing a service by collecting the information, organizing it, adding their own ideas to it, and finally publishing it so that you DON'T HAVE TO spend countless hours searching the web for it. If you are unwilling to pay a nominal fee for that convenience it's your choice, as nobody is forcing you to buy his guide. But if your only beef with the author is the fact that his guide is too expensive, perhaps it's you who are greedy.
He should just set up his own website and sell it off that - the bigwigs at WOW can't take that down.
Somewhere along the way for this guy, it became a matter of principle that Greedy Corporations shouldn't be able to hamper small entrepeneurs just because they wave the DMCA (which by all accounts is a stupidly written Act) around. Furthermore, his book isn't even breaking copyright law (according to what I read in the article, I haven't read his book personally).
I hope that he wins this case personally, because it can only further strengthen the fight against old copyright laws. As I'm sure that most everyone is already aware, the issue of copyright is NOT a small simple solution anymore, and the time needs to be taken to update ALL Copyright laws to conform to the present day situations.
Just rediculous
Before the DMCA, there did exist a "fair use" provision that many people used to their advantage.
However, then the DMCA was written the entire idea of fair use was specifically EXCLUDED. No such usage is allowed of digital media.
The question remains, though... when does digital media become free to discuss? If no portion of a product contains any actual material copyrighted by others, can infringement occur?
Personally, I believe the answer is No. However, the Supreme Court rarely consults me before reaching its decision. :)
The problem is that their anti-circumvention provision gets in the way of fair use, and there is no good way to get around that. That being said, in this particular case this isn't an issue.
>>> What's to keep Allakhazam.com (or any other website) from being shut down should Vivendi / Blizzard / ESA win this lawsuit?
Kopps claim that the book was meant for educational value was dismissed by Blizzard because they feel that it is produced clearly (for) a commercial purpose . Couldn't this argument can be used against websites too. This brings me to my second question:
>>> Based on the rather broad language used by Blizzard, how would a negative ruling for Kopp affect someone who authored an extremely popular World or Warcraft website and then collected money for Premium Content (such as Allakhazam) or from banner ads?
Only "authorized" reviews of companies products will be allowed. Anyone posting a review which is not approved by the company, either on a website, or in a publication, will be sued for "copyright infringment", when is this coming, next year?
If we have to pay a "licensing fee" to Ford Motor Company before we could use pictures of engines from Ford cars to make our book, then, I say it's time to stop having corporations altogether because corporate greed is getting out of hand.
Excessive greed seems to be the standard accross most all of corporate culture. It seems like Hollywood, and the RIAA seem to think that it's somehow their God given right to be paid more and more money each year, regardless of the quality of their product or the desires of their customers. We all know who Supreme Court Justics Alito would vote for in this case, every time I think of that (him) blight on what should be a great institution I get sick to my stomach. How can we undo the damage done by Imperator G.W. Bush? It will probably take decades.
MelandriRemus.com
I know the maker of guides and add-ons eventually find a way to legally sell their products again. And there's nothing wrong about it, is it?