bettypliu wrote:I just feel astonished there is still no any comments and feedback from Blizzard so far, even though all the influential medias are talking about it !!
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World of Warcraft (and all it's character names and models, etc....) are the intellectual property of Blizzard Entertainment. If someone uses the intellectual property for personal gain or even to distribute it for free, they are subject to very high penalties and in the rarest of cases, jail time. Blizzard has already proven how little of a grey area there is when it comes to people stealing their intellectual property. Blizzard has won multiple lawsuits against several different types of copyright infringement/violations of the EULA/TOS, such as: Multiple bot services shut down and forced to pay $7 million a piece. A Hearthstone Card Game clone in China (another 7+ million awarded to Blizz). And most notable, the $88 million they were awarded against a private server run by a woman in Georgia.
The reason why Blizzard can, at any time, come down on a private server (whether the server makes a profit or not) is because they are not only using Blizzard's intellectual property without permission, but allowing players to access the intellectual property on non-official Blizzard servers, thus circumventing a subscription fee. Now it is more difficult for Blizzard to take down a private server that absolutely makes no money from it's player base but it is still illegal and Blizzard has proven this with the shut down of Nostalrius.
We can hope for a grey area all we want, but unless the admins/devs/GMs wish to take this to places Blizzard doesn't want to spend the time and money to pursue, or unless someone is willing to change every character and town name in the game, as well as slightly alter the models, it is a direct violation of copyright law as well as the EULA/TOS agreement, they have to abide by the laws that have been enforced at this point. And despite the fact some here are saying that the EULA/TOS are irrelevant because of EU law, that isn't entirely correct. The whole point of the EULA/TOS, and the reason your clicking of 'I Accept' is so important for both sides, is to protect their intellectual property while also giving them an out if any misdeeds occur on the players part. Owning/operating/playing on a private server is one of those misdeeds listed, and as proven by the recent 'Cease and Desist', completely illegal even with a non-proft private server.
All that said, law can change, and with petitions and outcry hopefully we will see Blizzard change it's stance because I would love to see legacy servers or places like Nostalrius allowed to do what they were so good at while the server was up. Fingers crossed.
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Fair wrote:Enjurbn wrote:Pottu wrote:Again, that might legally be true in the US but in the EU, it's not. It does not matter what is written in the EULA/TOS, because if it conflicts with national or EU legislation, these always trump them.
Really? My understanding was that Blizzard is a private company and can set any rules they want for their product, as long as consumer is presented with a choice to agree or disagree with them. Unless it is written specifically in the EU law, something that forbids game creators from doing that
I doubt that there were any TOS that these gamers agreed with when they bought their games initially, in which it was said that they cannot resell their cds
Blizzard TOS is irrelevant to the point where it means if you break it, they reserve the right to ban you from their network - it is not law, they have no legal standing to go after you unless what you did is also explicitly forbidden by law. However whether or not running a private server is legally allowed, I couldn't tell you. But their TOS is not the law.
(right click, open in new tab)
Enjurbn wrote:I dont know of any EU law that can override this agreement
MaciejB wrote:You're full of shit and you didn't even bother to read the posts in this thread.
theluda wrote: Packaged software is treated differently in the EU. You do not buy a usage license, but the full ownership of the packaged software. Main different between EU and rest of the world.
And since the full EULA/TOS is not printed outside of the package, they do not apply on buying them.
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cmill78 wrote:This might be true but I find it hard to believe that Blizzard (and any other video game company for that matter) doesn't k now this and has the legal methods in place to defend themselves against copyright infringement. That is made evident by the cease and desist putting the fear of God in Nostalrius. If it was all fluff and the loophole was that simple to exploit, the server would still be up.
theluda wrote:cmill78 wrote:This might be true but I find it hard to believe that Blizzard (and any other video game company for that matter) doesn't k now this and has the legal methods in place to defend themselves against copyright infringement. That is made evident by the cease and desist putting the fear of God in Nostalrius. If it was all fluff and the loophole was that simple to exploit, the server would still be up.
There is a difference between the rights granted when buying a packaged software, copyrights and intellectual property.
Nostalrius is not violating the EULA e.g. if they do not run the game client. Individual players can do though.
The Nostalrius case is more about intellectual properties, and the rights to pertaining ownership and control over them. As it is now, Nostalrius is basically using Blizzards' IP without a license. Letting this go on would mean, Blizzard were to lose their IP. So they have to defend it, or they will lose the rights to pertain ownership.
It's actually dead simple, and not a case of EULA or copyright. It's about trade marked intellectual properties.
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