Amy Schley

Gaming By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: This MMO is too addictive! I'm suing!

Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly guide to the intersection between law and the World of Warcraft. I'm Amy Schley, newly graduated law student and your tour guide through the quirky world of copyrights, contracts and crazy lawsuits. One of the many joys of going to law school is that you know every lawyer joke known to man, and your friends and family feel a need to inform you of the latest crazy lawsuit. While nothing will ever top Mayo v. Satan and His Staff for sheer silliness (by both plaintiff and judge), a new case making the rounds comes close. Someone is suing an MMORPG for being addictive. That's right. A Mr. Craig Smallwood, former player of Lineage II, is suing NCsoft for negligently creating an addictive game, for failing to warn him that the game was addictive and for blocking him from the game, causing him to suffer severe withdrawal symptoms that prompted hospitalization and thrice-weekly counseling sessions. More facts and analysis after the break; all information comes from the judge's recent opinion.

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Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Rookie's guide to the EULA, part 2

Welcome to the Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly examination of the intersection between law and the World of Warcraft. Your tour guide is Amy Schley, recent law school grad. Last week, we looked at the first half of the EULA -- the license limitations, the steps to terminate the agreement and a few other provisions. This week is the back half of the EULA -- the warranties, conflict resolution provisions and miscellaneous provisions. Export controls Section 8 prohibits the export and sale of the game to countries the United States has embargoed or persons that are on the "Specially Designated Nationals" list, essentially a list of terrorist organizations. Alas, this means that we won't be settling the War on Terror with world PvP death match.

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Gaming By Amy Schley

Private server company forced to pay Blizzard $88 million

A judge in the California Central District Court ruled Thursday that Scapegaming, also known as Alyson Reeves, has lost its lawsuit against Blizzard. Scapegaming had set up private Blizzard servers that included a microtransactions market. Blizzard sued them in October 2009 for copyright infringement. As we've covered here before, private servers are a violation of license limitations of the EULA. Blizzard considers any violation of those license limitations to be copyright infringement and sues people for such. Furthermore, Blizzard established in the "Bnetd" case that crafting software to set up a private server is a copyright infringement all on its own. The total reward of $88,594,589 comes from $3,053,339 of inappropriate profits, $63,600 of attorney's fees, and $85,478,600 of statutory damages. Statutory damages are damages required by law that are increased for willful and commercially based infringement. Scapegaming may appeal the amount.

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Apps

Apps By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: A rookie's guide to the EULA

Welcome to the Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly exploration of the intersection of the World of Warcraft and the law. Acting as your tour guide is Amy Schley, just returned from Hell the bar exam. Hello again! To kick off the return of the Lawbringer, we're going to move into rookie guide territory. Now, I know, I know -- your rogue "High Warlord Pwnyoo" is ready and willing to gank my mains, my alts and even my husband's toons for calling you a rookie. But by a show of hands, how many of you have actually read the EULA instead of just scrolling down to the bottom to click "Accept"? Given the paucity of hands raised out there, I figure it's time for a rookie's guide to the End User License Agreement.

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PC Gaming By Amy Schley

Around Azeroth: Goodbye, Mirage Raceway

The sun is setting on our beloved racetrack. No more will we be running around it, collecting debris, scaring humans disguised as chickens and eating Tigul and Foror's Strawberry ice cream. Goodbye, Mirage Raceway! Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here. %Gallery-76180%

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Gaming By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: New Battle.net TOU

Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly examination of the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a new law school grad, acting as your tour guide when I manage to steal a few hours from my bar prep. The times, they are achangin' ... Spring goes to summer, people graduate, and new patches come out. Sometimes, though, it's not just the code being updated. If you've logged onto Battle.net in the last few weeks, you have been greeted by banners announcing this change. This week, we'll be examining what has changed in the Battle.net TOU. (Mea culpa -- I promised that this week we'd be looking at the MDY v. Blizzard arguments. I should be able to get to them next week, but finding linkable source material is proving difficult. If anyone from MDY or Blizzard is reading this, would you be so kind to post your appellate arguments online and send me a link?)

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Gaming By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: MDY v. Blizzard Q & A

Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly look at the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a new law school grad, acting as your tour guide after escaping the rapping, taco-eating armadillos of my bar prep class. Last week's timeline of the MDY v. Blizzard case seemed to prompt more questions than it answered. Therefore, I want to take this week to go through the many questions and comments that were left on the site or emailed to me. Sean asked: "Can you explain the unfair competition claim? As the only one that MDY won (far as I can tell), it's interesting in its own right." Blizzard alleged that MDY's business practices of selling a product that encouraged people to violate their EULA & TOU was a willful and knowing violation of Arizona's Unfair Competition Law. MDY moved for summary judgment and Blizzard didn't oppose the motion. MDY "won" by default.

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Gaming By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: The history of Blizzard and MDY (Glider)

It's a Glider! Sorry, that's as good as the jokes are going to get. Greetings from The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly look at the intersection between law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a newly minted law school grad acting as your tour guide between bar prep sessions. In the last two weeks, we looked at the difference between purchases and licenses. This is of vital importance as a major bit of cyberlaw plays out in the Ninth Circuit, namely the next stages of MDY v. Blizzard, Vernor v. Autodesk, and UMG v. Augusto. Today seems like an excellent time to review the case of MDY v. Blizzard, as we've covered the other two a bit. My source for this history will be the excellent collection of files at Justicia.com, which includes all documents filed in the district court of Arizona in this case. Let's get started!

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News By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: License v. Purchase -- Sgt. Joe Friday Edition

Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly look at the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a recent law school grad acting as your tour guide and trying not to think about the Bar Exam in a few weeks. Last week's discussion of seems to have left many of y'all rather confused. The occasional hazard of having an idea that is fun to write is discovering that it isn't always as much fun to read, so I apologize for that. This week we'll be skipping the dramatization about License v. Purchase issues to get just the facts, ma'am. (If you were one of those who really enjoyed last week, you might want to check out my fiction.) We'll begin by noting that the program of World of Warcraft comes with an End User License Agreement. While vocabulary isn't everything, one has a difficult time arguing that the relationship isn't a license when one has signed a license agreement.

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News By Amy Schley

Breakfast Topic: Memorial Day

This weekend is very special to many Americans as we celebrate Memorial Day. Originally a holiday to honor those killed during the American Civil War (aka War Between the States, War of Northern Aggression, The Freedom War or simply "The War"), it has become the day to decorate the tombstones of our loved ones, especially those who have lost their lives in battle. If going out to the local cemetery isn't really your thing though, you can celebrate this holiday in Azeroth. Below is a list of the various quests that have you visit the graves of the notable and lesser known heroes:

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News By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Purchase vs. License cage match

Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly tour of the intersection between law and the World of Warcraft. I am a new law school grad, acting as your crossing guard. Ladies and gentlemen, gnomes of all ages, welcome to THE CAGE! In our first corner, we have the provider of countless yachts to copyright lawyers, with the power of the contract, the big bad himself, the License! And in our second corner, it's the plucky defender of consumers' property rights, the champion of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the curse of the big bads everywhere -- let's give a big welcome to the Purchase! Now let's go to Bob for tonight's rules. The rules of tonight's fight are simple, Jim. These two contenders are fighting over who best describes World of Warcraft players' relationship to Blizzard. There will be three rounds, during which each fighter will present a case to persuade our judges. After three rounds of presentations, our judges will decide who really embodies the relationship between Blizzard and its customers. Why is this so important, Bob? Well, Jim, a license can contain pretty much any rights, but the EULA for a piece of entertainment software with a subscription like World of Warcraft is going to only give the bare minimum of what Blizzard is willing to allow. They can't be too stingy, or they'll go down like Linden Labs to an unconscionability claim, but they're much more worried about protecting their interests than allowing the customers to get all licentious. Licentious, Bob? Read a book, Jim. Anyway, if plucky little Purchase wins, then players get to be subject to the firmly defined laws instead of a mushy, Blizzard-defined license. The law regarding copyrighted copies allows them to make backup copies, get first sale doctrine protection and not be subject to copyright law for breaking the rules defined in the EULA.

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News By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Scope of copyrights

Welcome to the Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly look at the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a newly minted J.D. acting as your crossing guard. Greetings from the other side of graduation! The sun is shining, tons of Cataclysm spoilers await and now I don't have to arrange my WoW-ing and writing around my study schedule. Given that, it's time to get back into our examination of copyright law. Two weeks ago, we looked at what can get a copyright, namely: literary works; musical works and accompanying words; dramatic works and accompanying music; pantomimes and choreography; pictorial, graphical and sculptural works; motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and architectural works. But knowing what can be covered by a copyright doesn't explain what a copyright gives an author. A copyright is actually a bundle of separate rights: right to make copies right to distribute copies right to create derivative works right to perform or display right to anticircumvention of the measures taken to prevent copying moral rights, including rights of attribution and the right to avoid mutilation

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PC Gaming By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Copyrights and WoW

Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly tour of the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I am a third-year law student acting as your tour guide (and trying not to get run over, myself). Greetings! After an unintended hiatus (pesky finals to study for), I'm back and ready to start a new theme here at The Lawbringer. For the last couple months, we've been examining issues of contract law as it relates to the End User License Agreement and Terms of Use to which we as players agree. For the next few months, we'll be examining issues of copyright law as they relate to our favorite world ... of Warcraft. Before we delve too far, though, I want to note that copyright law is a complex field of law with antecedents dating back 400 years. Add in national constitutions, international treaties and the paradigm shifts in technology in the last 50 years, and you end up with a subject that cannot be compressed into a 1,200-word column or three. If I appear to be skipping over your favorite bit, rest assured, I will probably address it at some point. Join me after the break, where we'll examine the nature of copyright and how it covers our favorite game.

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PC Gaming By Amy Schley

More Cataclysm Changes for mages

Blizzard finally announced the mage changes coming with Cataclysm last night, and this afternoon Ghostcrawler released answers to the questions we've all been asking. Highlights include: The two new spells Flame Orb and Wall of Fog are not channeled, Food and water creation are being removed from the early game as part of a "spend less time eating and drinking" philosophy The philosophies behind the three deep Mastery bonuses An explanation of the removal of four utility spells. Check out the blue post after the break! (And my fire gnome can't wait to add Flame Orb to her list of "Ways to Blow Stuff Up.")

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Gaming By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Gold sellers are criminals!

Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly tour of the intersection between law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a third-year law student acting as your crossing guard, trying desperately to avoid getting run over myself. All our discussions about contract law and the EULA have been dealing with civil law (civil law as in the opposite of criminal law, not the opposite of common law). As has been pointed out before, selling gold is a violation of the Terms of Use and End User License Agreement. What can American courts do to someone who breaches a contract? For that answer, we have to look at the history of merry olde England. Fire up the DeLorean, Marty! Medieval England (the time period from which law is still recovering) had a bifurcated justice system. If someone had violated a contract, the aggrieved party could sue in a court of law for damages. These damages could be the amount of money necessary to put the victim in the position in which they were before the contract was made. (Example: I promise to mow your lawn, and you pay me $20 ahead of time. I don't mow your lawn; you can sue me for the $20.) Depending on the case, the victim might receive the amount of money necessary to put him in the position in which he would have been had the contract been followed. (Example: same scenario, except not only do I have to pay you back the $20, I have to pay $20 to get someone else to mow the yard.) This is just fine when a problem can be resolved with money.

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Gaming By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Kids and Contracts

Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly visit to the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I am a third year law student acting as your crossing guard and trying not to get run over myself. For this week, we'll turn to my mailbag: I've turned 18 and am on an account my father WAS paying for. Is there any way without having the Ban Hammer brought down on me for me to have exclusive rights to the account? Because I'm pretty sure my father does not play and never really has. Thanks- Tom Tom's situation is not that unusual, but before we get into his question, I feel the need to reiterate something: I am not a lawyer. While I do appreciate the fact that I'm likely the closest thing to a lawyer that many of y'all feel comfortable contacting, I can't help you with real legal problems. That's a little no-no known as practicing law without a license; doing so could make me ineligible for the bar exam. And let me tell you, I do not want to end up with a loan bill bigger than my parents' mortgage without the piece of paper necessary to pay that debt off. I can tell you what the EULA and TOU says, what the current law is, what policies Blizzard has in place, but I can't tell you what you should do. (I also feel compelled to note that I am female. For those wishing to accuse me of blind loyalty to Blizzard: if I were a fanboy, the byline would read Gregory Rummel.)

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Gaming By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Interfering with gold farmers

Welcome to the Lawbringer, your weekly tour of the intersection between law and Warcraft. I am a third year law student specializing in intellectual property law acting as your crossing guard, trying desperately not to get run over myself. So last week we engaged in some speculation about how WoW might change if Blizzard permitted gold sales. Personally, I think that the damage to the game economy and culture would be far more damaging than any legal issues that might develop, but it's worth noting that legal issues could easily develop. As for the here and now, certain facts about gold selling remain: Gold selling is against the terms of both the North American and European EULA and TOU. Gold selling is performed by a number of companies, many of them located outside the Unites States. Gold sellers acquire their gold through obnoxious farming behaviors and account hacking. Gold sellers exist because of gold buyers. Given all this, what can we as players do to stop these locusts? The biggest thing is obviously to NOT buy gold. I really don't think this point can be emphasized enough. Beyond that though, we may be able to take advantage of a legal theory known as tortious interference in contract.

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PC Gaming By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Legal gold sales? Not a Blizzard's chance in Hell

Welcome to The Lawbringer, wow.com's weekly feature on the intersection between World of Warcraft and the Law. I am a third year law student acting as your crossing guard and trying not to get run over myself. As an introduction to our promised discussion on gold farming, I wanted to address an idea that's been circulating in the WoW blogosphere. There has been some talk that Blizzard could solve the problem of gold farming and hacked accounts in one fell swoop by simply selling the gold themselves. It's an attractive idea on its face, as some feel as though Blizzard's current ban on Real Money Transaction for gold ("RMT") is nothing but an ill advised Prohibition. Permit people to buy gold through Blizzard, the argument goes, and the keyloggers, site spoofers, hackers, and spammers will go back to the rock from under which they came, just like the Mafia disappeared after alcohol sales were permitted in 1933. Oh wait... The obvious problems have been pointed out before, including: rich brats will have more advantages over folks with jobs and bills; inflation will cause Azeroth to resemble Zimbabwe, the Weimar Republic, or -- God forbid -- Norrath; players will be forced to pay up to stay competitive; WoW-clone MMOs will follow Blizzard's lead, leaving players with few refuges from RMT markets; Blizzard devs will be "encouraged" to design the game around acquiring and spending more gold; players who can't remember website names will still think "www.l3g!t-w0rlduvw0wcr@ft-g0ld.c0m" is Blizzard's website and download keyloggers, etc. Some don't believe this parade of horribles is enough to discourage Blizzard from creating this quixotic market. To the doubters, let me add some legal issues that would affect Blizzard and players, namely: property rights, taxation, and investment advice. Any of that sound like improvements to you?

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News By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Euro-ver my head, contract law edition

Welcome to the Lawbringer, your weekly stop at the intersection of law and Warcraft. I am your crossing guard, trying desperately to not get run over myself. First, I want to apologize for being a day late, but my week was spent preparing for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. Unfortunately, the test was channeling Illidian. If I get a letter in a few weeks saying that I'm not yet responsible enough to be a lawyer, I will not be surprised. Anyway, on to this week's promised topic: European Contract Law. We'll be approaching the same topics we covered on my side of the pond: contract formation, contract termination, and unfairness. These concepts form the basis of players' relationship with Blizzard, just like they do in the US. Whether Blizzard has the right to publish information about your avatars, ban you from the game, delete your achievements, or force you to resolve disputes in a mediation are all affected by the laws of the country in which a player resides. The first challenge in this column is that there traditionally has been no "European" contract law; these issues were decided at a national level through the home country's common or civil law system. Trans-nationalism being all the rage, however, the politicos of the European Union have formed the Commision on European Contract Law which has drafted Principles of European Contract Law. A Common Frame of Reference "toolbox" to help various European legislatures standardize the various laws of contract across the continent to match these Principles. What this means, though, is that this law is in a state of flux -- and I am not a barrister, abogada, rechtsanwalt, advokat, or avocat. Take everything in this column with a big grain of salt. And possibly a margarita to wash it down.

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News By Amy Schley

The Lawbringer: Euro-ver my head, contract law edition, Page 2

Just as US contracts can be altered if their terms are found to be unfair enough, contracts under European laws can be found so as well. English law has codified this principle in the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations. The law includes a non-exhaustive list of possible unfair terms, including "enabling the seller or supplier to alter the terms of the contract unilaterally without a valid reason which is specified in the contract" and "enabling the seller or supplier to alter unilaterally without a valid reason any characteristics of the product or service to be provided." In the case law, the Court of Appeal has held that if one condition in a set of printed conditions is particularly onerous or unusual the party relying on it must show he has fairly brought that condition to the other side's attention (Spurling v. Branshaw) -- a point upon which a EULA or TOU may be vulnerable.

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News By Amy Schley

Breakfast Topic: Favorite names

Our very own Gregg Reece is a new father, which got me thinking about names for babies. Some names are just plain awful, like my poor father-in-law named Hubert. Some names are passed down in families, with varying degrees of suitability -- naming my sister after our great-grandfather probably wouldn't have worked if he hadn't been named Hillary. There are names that leave you with pity for the poor kid saddled such bizarre parents that would inflict such names upon their kids: Kal-el Cage, Apple Paltrow. And then there are names which are just plain awesome: Magnus Magnussen, Harold Bluetooth, Rip Torn. The Warcraft universe is full of names, some strange, some familiar. We have the parody names: Vana Grey, Xiggs Fuselighter (above), Linken. There are the homages to literature: Morgan Stern, the putative author of The Princess Bride, and Commander Falstaav, a joke on Shakespeare's Falstaff. There appear to be family names like Anduin. There are the cultural patterns that allow for easy guessing of an NPC's race -- who's the gnome? Bloodhoof or Mechatorque? So what names from the World of Warcraft would you a) be proud to name your own children, or b) refuse to inflict upon an innocent child? Calia or Jaina wouldn't sound too far out of place in the real world, but I can't imagine meeting a Garrosh or Brann. (Especially, God forbid, a Brann Muffin.) Leave your thoughts! Warning: This is not a raffle to name Gregg's baby, as Lyssa Rhiannon has a name.

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Gaming By Amy Schley

Blizzard and The9 fined $212,000 for copyright infringement in China

From Worlds in Motion we've learned that Blizzard has suffered yet another setback in China. As reported by JLM Pacific Epoch, the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court has found that The9, Blizzard's onetime partner in China violated the copyrights of five Chinese fonts owned by Founder Technology Group. The9, Blizzard, and two other parties have been ordered to pay a fine of RMB 1.45 million, or approximately US$ 212,000. The9 has appealed the order to the People's Supreme Court. (Lovely place by the way. Just watch the steps.) To recap, Blizzard had licensed World of Warcraft to The9 to distribute the game in China. Apparently, in localizing the game for China, The9 used five fonts for the Chinese text in game. However, these fonts are owned by Founder Technology Group, who sued The9 and Blizzard for copyright infringement in 2007, requesting damages of RMB 100M, or about US$ 13M. In September 2007, when The Burning Crusade was released in China, all of the Founder Technology Group fonts were replaced with fonts that Blizzard had permission to use "as a gesture of goodwill to the gaming community" "without any admission of liability." Given the rocky relationship between The9 and Blizzard, it is likely that this fine will be yet another bone of contention between the companies and that responsibility for this fine may end up being decided in yet another court battle. Stay tuned!

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