Blizzard joked about it for April Fool’s. But never underestimate what a player will do for their game…
World of Warcraft – English (NA) Forums -> April Fools? Not so fast…
A screenshot of WoW: Molten Core for Atari 2600 (well, really, for Windows)
This late in the evening, Mrgurlargl was the only one still awake. The others were curled around the campfire, full of wine and food and sleeping soundly. He couldn’t sleep, though, he was too proud, too excited to sleep.
“Die murloc filth!” Loldude247’s assault was swift. His sword sang death even as his shouts roused the sleeping family.
Stumbled across this when checking out trackbacks. Of course, it reminds me of this.
Virtually Blind has the scoop, but in short, Blizzard won on all the major points: the court didn’t go for the copyright argument, saying they were bound by precedent and not a policymaking body; and that making this kind of software looks like tortious interference (meaning, interfering with the contract between Blizzard and users). Further analysis at TerraNova.
Although it has not put the issue in quite such stark terms, Public Knowledge is essentially seeking a ruling that says that the sale of consumer software is, in most circumstances, a sale, pretty much regardless of what the agreement that comes with the software says. If the court agrees in spite of MAI and its progeny (and the ruling survives certain appeal) then U.S. copyright law would protect, among other things, making copies of purchased software in RAM in order to use the software — no matter what the “license agreement” says. Resolving this issue in favor of Public Knowledge would call into question provisions in EULAs governing nearly every virtual world and multiuser online game, as well as EULAs for other software.
Just some figures that caught my eye while browsing a few different publications…
