Blizzard, with the help of mega-firm Sonnenschein, Nath, and Rosenthal, secured a settlement, including a permanent injunction against In Game Dollar (peons4hire) to prevent them from "engaging in the sale of [WoW] virtual assets or power level services, making any use of the [WoW] in-game communication or chat system to advertise any website, business, or commercial endeavor, or sending messages to the [WoW] servers, the [WoW] in-game communication or chat system [...] if such messages mention or advertise any commercial endeavor." In addition, the business is blocked from investing in any other business that are doing any of these things.
IGD Got Pwned!
In case anybody cares (me! me!), this case is not setting precedent because it is a settlement. Still, this case will serve as a beacon of hope for those who hate the influence of gold farmers, power levelers, biatches, and others that make MMOs unfair to all those who log endless hours (this means you!). Significant also is the enforcement of the terms of service - there has been much buzz about whether these terms of service contracts are contracts of adhesion (meaning, since the consumer is given no real choice about the terms of the contract, the contract may be void if the terms are too lop-sided), but at least for now, WoW's ToS stood up.
Joe Gabaeff is an associate at Kokka and Backus, PC, an intellectual property firm located in Palo Alto, CA. Mr. Gabaeff is a licensed attorney in the State of California, and a member of the American Bar Association and the International Game Developers Association. He is also the Editor-in-chief and founder of Bloggey Kong, a blog dedicated to legal developments surrounding interactive media. Opinions expressed in this column are Mr. Gabaeff's own (but even he doesn't believe all of this stuff). Reach him at: jgabaeff@kokkalaw.com.
The content of this blog article is not legal advice, and is for educational and informational purposes only. It only constitutes commentary on legal issues. Reading this blog, replying to its posts, or any other interaction on this site does not create an attorney-client privilege between you and the author. The opinions expressed on this site are not the opinions of Destructoid.com or Kokka and Backus, PC. As with any legal issue that may confront you in a particular situation, you should always consult a licensed attorney familiar with the laws in your state.
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The content of this comment is not legal advice, and is for educational and informational purposes only. It only constitutes commentary on comments regarding to legal issues. Reading this comment, replying to it, or any other interaction on this site does not create an attorney-client privilege between me and this douche. The opinions expressed on this site are not the opinions of Racoon. As with any legal issue that may confront you in a particular situation, you should always consult a licensed attorney familiar with the laws in your state.
Glad I got my ass covered.
Show those cheatars whut for.
PS: Ol' Joe is focusing on the legal side of gaming. He's got the logos and the pathos, but in order for the ethos, you ought to know that this is what he [i]does[\i]. He is a licensed attorney practicing tech & media law. But there are these pesky ethics rules, ya see, by which he must abide. And the Joe abides.
While you may be a very smart animal who soaks your dinner in the creek to make it soft before you eat it, a lot of other people in the world are stupid and blame everyone else for it. If one of them decides to, I don't know, flout the DMCA because Joe says it stinks, and then gets hammered with fines, the idiot might try to go and sue Joe. Hell, it's just unfortunate when somebody gets hammered with fines because they mistook something as legal advice.
So before Joe passed the bar, he had to take a little ethics exam, part of which drills into young, impressionable attorney minds that you need to be very clear about when you are or are not offering legal advice or representing someone. It gets even more complicated when you're up on the web, getting readers from so many different jurisdictions.
I understand where you're coming from--nobody wants to read legalese, especially in a community of informal blogs about loving games and calling each other things like newb and lame and douche. And Joe can throw around the loLz or stfuajpg with the best of them. As a professional, however, he's obliged to throw that CYA language in.
At least I think. I'm not a licensed attorney, so don't trust me on that, except you can, because there's nothing you can do to me if I'm wrong!