**** NOTE - before reading this, please understand that I do NOT support the idea of in-game and out-of-game economies being mixed together. Keep the real world out of the game world, please.
****

A big problem with trying to actually pursue coin/item sellers in a legal court is this:

The items in question never leave the posession of Blizzard.

Blizzard owns everything in the game. The coins, characters and items are not removable from the game in order to be bartered or traded. When any sale is completed, the item is still fully in the possession of the owner, Blizzard.

The holder of Blizzard's property, if they are smart, will state that they are not selling the item, they are selling the service of procuring the item. You do not pay for an item, you pay for time and effort that went into getting access to <x> Blizzard-owned items.

This would be like a library suing a research specialist for locating a book of law/vital statistics/whatever for a client lawyer. The research specialist charges a fee to locate the materials and provide copies of it if need be. If the book in question cannot be copied, then exact instructions as to where it can be found and accessed may have to be sufficient.

This won't stop Blizzard from enforcing their EULA by any means, but if they try to go outside the game itself, into real world courts of law, they would likely be eaten for lunch by decent lawyers.

Having paid attention to this thread and being a hardcore farmer in FF11 (who will never own Archer Ring's.../cry), I love this announcement made by blizzard. However (sadly) no sooner do I go searching around the web to see if its true than I become disappointed ;; I found multiple websites already offerring to sell players gold for their WoW character. What makes this suck even more is that these sellers are the same ones who sell money in FF11 and EQ >.< Hmm...blizzard makes a strong statement but it has to back up them words >.< If you want to check it out yourself, go to cannotlinkto and look up the seller yantis! I'm already pretty ticked @ FF11 players who comment "why don't I have a vermillion cloak" to which I reply "well geezz...i dont buy gil sorry to disappoint you >.<" As much as I want a fun mmorpg to play, I ain't moving to WoW when it looks from my perspective that the in-game selling that ruined FF11 will not change =( And if the same crowd that went into FF11 goes into Wow...I'll just stick it out and pray the game becomes better in FF11 ;; (if I can get a drop from Jaggedy Eye Jack 1/51 times, then miracles can come true! lol XD)

Ok, this has bothered me for a while and since Blizzard has brought up the possibility of pursuing legal action against gold-sellers, I have to wonder how well that claim would stand up in court. More to the point, I have to wonder if Blizzard would risk pursuing the claim to the point that they get an adverse decision handed down, which they should be rightly afraid of; the RIAA and MPAA went after Grokster and KaZaa recently and it blew up in their faces.

Lets have a look at the law. From the U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Sec. 106:



A copyright holder is often said to have the "right of reproduction"; that is, they have the right to control the production and distribution of copies of their works of authorship. Now, how exactly is the REsale of gold "created" by Blizzard the distribution of a copy? The fact is, it's up in the air as to whether it is or not.

IGE (assuming they would be the primary defendant here) could make a very convincing argument based on the "first sale" doctrine, articulated in Lee v. A.R.T., that once a person buys the physical manifestation of the copyright work (i.e., a CD), they are completely free to resell it (note your local used CD store) because the copyright holder has already been compensated at the value he has set.

In this context, IGE (or whomever is selling them gold) has paid for the game and the subscription fee, so any in-game gold Blizzard provides them with is something they are free to do with as they choose. Blizzard asked $50 and a $15 monthly fee for access to their intellectual property. IGE has anted up, and it may be that Blizzard cannot do anything to stop them.

Again, this does NOT mean that Blizzard is not free to ban whomeevr they choose, but legal action is dangerous turf that I don't think Blizzard's representation is willing to explore. Think about it: what if a judge bought this argument? GOLDSELLING WOULD BE LEGAL. Blizzard, and any other MMORPG provider, can't risk that, because then IGE could just turn around and attack their Terms of Service on fair use grounds, win, and then goldselling would be all over the place, completely unchecked.

Any thoughts?

Amen to Blizzard who set the standard for onling gaming back with D2. FFXI is a complete joke now with the gil sellers.

This one's for Blizzard!

Blizzard's willing to punish the players as well as the companies committing the crimes. SE's afraid that punishing the players will result in people quitting (which makes some sense considering the much greater effort put into an XI char versus a WoW char). Unfortunately for SE, they're getting nowhere. I commend Blizzard for acting without hesitation to limit a problem that has effectively ruined aspects of XI for months past and months to come.

I'm so glad that Blizzard proved that something could be done about this. There is no reason SE should have just sat by and let gil selling happen, it was the final straw that finally made me quit FFXI... I simply refused to believe that SE had no legal right to put a stop to gil sellers. More power to Blizzard and a big F U to SE for doing nothing to protect a great game.

Good Day

Blizzard did the one thing SOE refused to do. Sweet. /cheer

I hope to God that Blizzard takes some action, unlike some companies *COUGH SE COUGH*. Its not that hard to do, go buy the cheapest amount, see who its sent by, and with that character name I believe they can get all other information that they need, yes?

Or they have their own methods, either way :)

Im just glad to see a company that wants to help their players instead of just be like "We are going to add some stuff... it wont really mean anything, even though we are telling you it will" etc etc... *COUGH SE COUGH*

... ps yes Im an FFXI defect (Lv64 Samurai) :P

/cheer Blizzard!

For those that think to argue the point, the Terms and Conditions Agreement that ALL players agree to before starting the game expressly prohibits any such action.

There is nothing unamerican or unethical about the TaC... it's Blizzard's product, and the law supports their position.

HERE HERE.



ME TO .!



LATER

If any staff of Blizzard reads this I say THANK YOU with my deepest empathy. You truly are leading the way and defining standards for online gaming. I humbly applaud your efforts to maintain a fun environment for all the players like myself who play fair so that I can continue to enjoy your game to its best. Your dedication to customer service and morals has won me over. Keep up the good work.