torts
Latest
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.
LGJ: A case of tortious interference
Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: No, it's not a symptom of the dreaded Swine Flu, but there has been a seeming rise in disputes concerning "tortious interference" in the games industry as of late. The most notable example being the Scratch: The Ultimate DJ dispute. Of course, from the first appearance of that curious word "tortious," there's been much confusion; be it over the term's actual meaning or it being incorrectly interchanged with the non-legal word "tortuous" (meaning winding or twisting). The word "tortious" comes from "tort," which is a civil wrong that results in damages. So, "tortious interference," from a definitional standpoint, is when someone intentionally interferes in someone else's business or contractual relationship and causes civil damage. These two varieties of tortious interference are not the same on a more detailed level, however.
