Legal Research

US 9th Circuit rules in WoW game ?bot? case

By scott

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down its judgment in the second of three similar cases dealing with the first-sale doctrine and whether or not electronic goods were owned by those that bought them or whether they were just licensed to that person.
A couple of months ago the court ruled, in Autodesk v. Vernor [as reported by me here and here and also slightly longer piece ?US ruling on software resale? - Comps. & Law 2009, 20(4), 5-6] , that if a company licensed its software, its customers do not qualify as ?owners? of the software, and that a user is a licensee rather than an owner of a copy where the copyright owner (1) specifies that the user is granted a license; (2) significantly restricts the user?s ability to transfer the software; and (3) imposes notable use restrictions.Now the court has ruled in MDY v. Blizzard that that purchasers of the game World of Warcraft (WoW) did not own their copy but were mere licensees of the game, and are required to adhere to the End User License Agreement and the Terms of Use set by Blizzard.

The district court found MDY liable for secondary copyright infringement, violations of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) §§ 1201(a)(2) and (b)(1), and tortious interference with contract. The Court affirmed the MDY?s liability for violation of DMCA § 1201(a)(2) and tortious interference with contract but overturned the finding of secondary copyright infringement holding that the ‘Glider’ “bot” which World of Warcraft players could use to advance through levels without actually playing the game “does not infringe any of Blizzard’s exclusive rights. For instance, the use does not alter or copy WoW software.”, so there is no infringement by end users and no liability for infringement to MDY.

However, with regards to the DCMA, the court held that circumvention of a measure that restricts access to a work can lead to liability under section 1201 regardless of whether there is any underlying copyright infringement.

The final related case, the Court has yet to publish its opinion on is UMG v. Augusto, which concerns whether the resale of promotional CDs on eBay infringing a recording company’s copyright on the material.

The always excellent Technology & Marketing Law Blog has some analysis of the MDY case.?

Full post as published by Information Overload on December 22, 2010 (boomark / email).