[Infowarrior] - Blizzard abandons DMCA threat over 'WoW' manual

[Richard Forno]

Blizzard abandons DMCA threat over 'WoW' manual

By Anne Broache
http://news.com.com/Blizzard+abandons+DMCA+threat+over+WoW+manual/2100-1043_
3-6082135.html

Story last modified Fri Jun 09 11:27:26 PDT 2006

A Florida man who claimed he'd been unlawfully blocked from selling copies
of his unofficial "World of Warcraft" guide by the wildly popular game's
makers can resume his sales, owing to an out-of-court settlement reached
Friday.

Brian Kopp, 24, had filed suit in March against California-based Blizzard
Entertainment, parent company Vivendi Universal and the Entertainment
Software Association (ESA). The complaint alleged that those organizations
were wrong to order eBay to terminate auctions of his book, "The Ultimate
World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide," of which he had sold hundreds of
copies at about $15 apiece since last August.

Alleging that the book violated intellectual-property laws, Blizzard,
Vivendi and the ESA sent repeated take-down notices, provided for by the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), to eBay. The auction giant's
general policy is to halt auctions when it receives such notices and to
suspend a user's account after it racks up a certain number of warnings.

Kopp routinely filed counternotices protesting the claims, according to his
original court complaint (click here for PDF) in California federal court.
Because the companies never responded to those documents, eBay was free to
reinstate Kopp's auctions, which it did. But the video game industry
continued to issue takedown notices, the number of which grew high enough
that eBay was forced to suspend Kopp's accounts under multiple usernames.

"It's pretty much the equivalent of showing up at your store one morning and
finding your goods on the curb with nothing you can do about it," said Greg
Beck, an attorney representing Kopp on behalf of advocacy group Public
Citizen. "They get so many notices of claimed infringement that they can't
investigate all claims."

The parties also threatened copyright and trademark infringement action
against Kopp, which he disputed in his complaint. He argued that the book
was in the clear because it presented a disclaimer on its first page about
its unauthorized nature, contained no copyrighted text or storylines, and
though it did use selected screen shots downloaded from a site unaffiliated
with the video game's makers, those uses were "fair."

The terms of the settlement do not provide for monetary compensation for
Kopp, which he had originally sought. Instead, the companies agreed to
withdraw their previous take-down notices and to drop their infringement
claims. They also said they'd refrain from filing any future takedown
notices against the same items that Kopp had already disputed through
counternotices.

Kopp, for his part, agreed to retain the book's disclaimers about its
unofficial nature and said he wouldn't include links or instructions on how
to locate "cheats" in the game.

Representatives from the video game industry were not immediately available
for comment.