My answer to Trade chat

[FoeReaper_]

In a legal sense, is there anything the playerbase can do to fight back? Can we bring Blizzard to small claims court for a refund of our original $50 vanilla wow purchase, plus $15/mo game fees for the first 2 years since they don't offer that service anymore?

Even if it costs us $50 to file, Blizz would have to send their corporate lawyers (or hire local lawyers in each location) to fight the case, right? Or would that open us to a countersuit, for them to reclaim their legal fees if they win the fight?

Signed...
Not A Lawyer

No, what you paid for was access to Blizzard's game servers, the license is not something you own, you simply rent it per se. The EULA and ToS is pretty straight forward as to what you actually paid for and what you should expect from the said purchase.

The best thing you can actually do is voice your opinion and unsub.

[Shinigamy]

Guys... fck it. I am a law student. And all I can say, with all of that "intellectual copyright" bullcrap about the game, internet, servers, coding and so on is really unclear.

Why? ---> read:

Have you seen the movie: "The Social Network" - and how Mark zuckerberg achieved victory? He asked the guys that were suing him: "is there any code that belongs to you? Do you see any code that is yours?" - I mean, it's not the same (what he said) but it's really close. They declined. They couldn't say anything about it.

Same shit is with Nostalrius Dev Team and the vanilla-wow server. And Blizzard are suing them... those guys. And I'm laughing really hard, because they are claiming (Blizz) that it is "copyright" LOL! HAhahah! Nost is the best scripted server so far (along with Kronos) and they have their own code etc.

And so, I think that Nost is going to win. And I think that they need a good lawyer/s!

As I've said before: I have a good feeling about all of this.

[FoeReaper_]

Guys... fck it. I am a law student. And all I can say, with all of that "intellectual copyright" bullcrap about the game, internet, servers, coding and so on is really unclear.

Why? ---> read:

Have you seen the movie: "The Social Network" - and how Mark zuckerberg achieved victory? He asked the guys that were suing him: "is there any code that belongs to you? Do you see any code that is yours?" - I mean, it's not the same (what he said) but it's really close. They declined. They couldn't say anything about it.

Same shit is with Nostalrius Dev Team and the vanilla-wow server. And Blizzard are suing them... those guys. And I'm laughing really hard, because they are claiming (Blizz) that it is "copyright" LOL! HAhahah! Nost is the best scripted server so far (along with Kronos) and they have their own code etc.

And so, I think that Nost is going to win. And I think that they need a good lawyer/s!

As I've said before: I have a good feeling about all of this.

You are incorrect. If Blizzard was to sue and demanded access to the server, and said access was given, they could easily point to the DBC files, which are part of the wow client, and thus protected by copyright laws. Honestly, in court, no server would stand a chance.

[metagame]

It's similar to the glider case. Which Blizzard won $6,000,000 for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(bot)

This comes down to the status of those who purchased the game being owners vs licensees.

In July 2008, the court entered summary judgment holding MDY Industries liable for tortious interference and copyright infringement, based, in part, upon the legal premise that users of the World of Warcraft client software are licensees rather than owners of their copy of software.[1]

It even went to an appeals court, which upheld the original decision:

On December 14, 2010, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its ruling. They agreed that users were licensees rather than owners of the software.

Also, to fight a billion dollar company in a court case where you're probably going to lose is asking for a beatdown.

By September 2011, mmoglider.com, the official "Glider" homepage, had vanished.[14][15] As of February 23, 2012, Blizzard owns the domain, and it is currently redirecting to battle.net's website.