Lawsuits for or against Blizzard are actually a rare thing if you consider the amount of Blizzard business out there. Nevertheless most of them are emotionally charged. They have more in common with divorce law than the usual business as usual versus fraud cases. And like most divorce cases, everyone loses except the lawyers.
Most Blizzard lawsuits are a Blizzard fan suing Blizzard or vice versa. This turn it is 24-year-old Brian Kopp of Bronson, Forida, enjoyed some income for a short while from e-Bay, the auctionhouse super-giant, beginning last August, by selling unauthorized WoW strategy guides at close to $15 a pop. Soon after his first auction opened, Blizzard caught wind and along with Vivendi and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) sent numerous complaints to E-Bay asking that the auctions should be shut down.
However, Brian wrote the strategy guide himself, "The Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide." His counter-complaints state that his book crosses no copyright lines and can be considered nothing but completely legal. None of the screenshots infringe on any rights Blizzard has to the game, no content is "copy/pasted" from the "official" guide, no piece of storyline was wrongly taken from the game. Public Citizen Has even joined the fight for Brian and backs him completely saying, "We think this cannot be the law."
All in all, things have come to somewhat of a stand-off. Numerous accounts created by Brian have been shut down on e-Bay when he tried to sell his strategy guide. As for now he is sticking to selling them from a personal website and proclaims that he will do so unceasingly.
//News submitted and written by Guest Writer
Gandalf2723Links
News.com - Source - Cnet
Citizen.org - PDF of some comlaints
Citizen.org - Public Citizen
