Blizzard drops WOW gold-farming guide suit

  • By Anne Broache, News.com
  • Posted Jun 9, 2006 7:52 pm GMT

Publisher had stated intent to sue Florida man for selling how-to manual for MMORPG on eBay.

From News.com

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 maker 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, and the Entertainment Software Association. 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 since last August at about $15 apiece.

Alleging the book violated intellectual-property laws, Blizzard, Vivendi, and the ESA sent repeated take-down notices, provided for by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 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 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 take-down 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, but he argued 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 take-down notices against the same items 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.

85 Comments

  • jeffv541

    Posted Oct 22, 2009 3:44 pm GMT

    If you play WOW, you are the death of decent online gaming. www.wowdetox.com

  • AncientDozer

    Posted Aug 22, 2008 11:52 pm GMT

    No need to defend the man, Prime. I doubt he'll ever come on here and read about it. He'll be laughing all the way to the bank. In this instance, that's a positive thing and I applaud him.

    Whether or not he's helping gold farmners is a whole other can of worms and I'm not going to worry about it right now. Whether he sells it or not, the wild nature of the internet will always contain that information so fighting this one man is a pointless gesture and a waste of resources.

    Oops. He is posting. I didn't notice until I scrolled down further. Well, good to hear you settled. At least you can sell again. I don't condone or condemn you because I don't play and could care less but I do wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. Big companies ought to stop chasing little guys doing "minor offenses". It's ridiculous.

  • Brendonius

    Posted Jul 24, 2007 1:35 pm GMT

    Politics and gaming... I hate the combo!

  • PrimeLazarus

    Posted Apr 18, 2007 11:04 pm GMT

    Mr. Kopp, I applaud you. You face the heat of Blizzard (a bit on the greedy side these days) and then you come to face the heat of ignorant post after ignorant post in response to this story. The production of an unofficial game guide is done by the hundreds (for pretty much every game out there) and NOW a company like Blizzard of all companies starts pointing the finger at an unauthorized guide to a game that is so remarkably large and dense that it charges you monthly to play and defies any sort of end-all-be-all game guide. It probably took 3 times as many man hours to produce Mr. Kopp's guide as it did to produce something like Final Fantasy VII's guide...if not more. If Mr. Kopp sells one guide for $15 and it enables or excites the purchaser enough to play for one more month, Blizzard made as much as he did--if not more from any additional months. They should pay the man for his intellectual rights to the guide and just sell the damn things themselves if they are so concerned about it. Perhaps if Blizzard saw it as a possible exploitation of some quirk of the economy; some fallible pillar of their design--they should have fixed the problem in-game and rendered the guide useless. Instead, I think Blizzard just didn't like the taste of someone else making money from WOW that they didn't get to touch directly.

    ALTHOUGH, Mr. Kopp did pay them monthly just to access his resources. They put a stain on their record and seem horribly malicious in their (over?)protection of their precious money-maker. They should pay him just for saying the words "World of Warcraft" on the front of the damn book for the pure advertisement. It's a solid game, and Blizzard is a solid game company but I'm seeing a new side of them altogether.
    Greed TRULY has reared its ugly head. I pay monthly and frankly think things like T-shirts and possibly even similar guides to Mr. Kopp's should be given periodically to subscribers just because, as a whole, we give them a friggin' s**t ton of money.

    Guides are meant to cut corners and if you don't agree with it, don't buy it or read it---it isn't cheating unless its giving one an UNFAIR advantage. The funny thing is, we ALL have access to these guides. So being unfair is a matter of perception. Someone BUYING gold for actual currency is a bit different and teetering on the edge of straight cheating but so is someone who has a buddy with a high level character that just e-mails them a ton of gold to make that person more excited to play. In the end BLIZZARD is seeing the pay off on the bottom line and I would be more impressed if they just rode the wave in, made their money quietly and not be such nickel-pinching dirt bags.

    As for gold farming or any other sort of 'cheating,' I don't condone gold farming, and in a lot of ways I find it frustrating because as much as some take part and others don't--ALL realize it's there and those that don't take part sometimes ask ridiculous prices because others do take part in the purchasing of farmed gold and will pay those outrageous prices. I think a cap would be a wonderful idea! Although that would be a bit contrary to an auction system and would probably end in what would just be an extended vendor system full of capped prices and little room for actual bidding.

    Blizzard -- being mysterious and quiet is far more intriguing than a child who doesn't share his/her toys. Loosen up and be more thankful for all of the NEW and OLD fans that World of Warcraft has intrigued and just concentrate on the game and making it better. That's what you do, let us rabble deal with what guides we want to buy or don't want to buy. The next time I hear from you, Blizzard, it better be about a new game or expansion pack dammit. Do you want timeout? DO YOU WANT TIMEOUT?

  • Surge_Butcher

    Posted Jul 29, 2006 12:30 am GMT

    Christ, if things like this keep up, Blizzard could turn into a company like EA.
    Nobody wants that to happen.
    First, he stated CLEARLY that the guide was unofficial.
    Second, to quote Dogmeat25, Blizzard has become corrupted and blinded by the incredible financial gain that came from World of Warcraft...if he did the same thing with Starcraft back a little after IT had been released, psh, Blizzard might have even endorsed it.

    Third, the action the Blizzard took was completely unnecessary, because it seems to me like they filed the suit without a second thought! Maybe if they DID think of it a little bit, they would realize that people who were giving up on World of Warcraft because it was just too damn complicated and they're not the type of person Blizzard intended for this game to be for (lifeless nerds who spend 75 hours straight on it and leave their marriage/kids for it) at level 30ish came back after looking at Kopp's guide and reached level 60. Now, think , Kopp sold (so said the story above) HUNDREDS of these guides, and even if half of the people who bought it were people just starting or people bored of it, Blizzard still made thousands of extra dollars off it! They just got greedy, and maybe didn't like the fact that Kopp was making money off it. Maybe Blizzard wanted it all for themselves, and if you just look on here, Blizzard has already hurt it's reputation with this ordeal. I think the fact that they are greedy now is the reason they dropped the suit. They DO want to sell Burning Crusade right??

    I might copy these posts thousands of times and Air-Drop them all over America to show Blizzard the scale of the mistake they made!!!!!!

  • Scottydooo

    Posted Jul 25, 2006 9:10 am GMT

    blizzard is rediculous...

  • mturbyfill

    Posted Jul 18, 2006 8:26 am GMT

    The in game economics of WOW are already out of whack - gold farming is in response to that problem. I don't believe in gold farming but I understand why it is happening. Go to an auction house and try to find a good weapon or piece of armor for your level that you can afford. It can't be done. So, I spend a good chunkj of my time mining and blacksmithing to create items to sell to lower level characters so I can actually afford paying 40gp for a good weapon. Would I rather be doing other things - absolutely, and that is why some players just decide to buy the gold instead. My solution would be to cap items at the auction house at a certain price in regards to the vendor price. For example if you were to sell an item to a vendor for 50 silver, maybe make the most you can sell it for at the auction be 10 times that at 5gp or some other multiplier. Not a sermon, just a thought.

  • Sephy_04

    Posted Jul 11, 2006 3:01 pm GMT

    I'll agree with Dogmeat completely, Blizzard has become so blinded with cash from World of Warcraft, I became so bored after 5 months of playing the game, once you reach the LV60 cap, there is literally nothing entertaining to do and new content is so little and far between.

    I too remember the good old days of Starcraft, but judging by Blizzard's numerous comments of "We can update World of Warcraft with new content for decades to come, etc", I imagine we'll never see the quality RTS games that were once their trademark and what made them Blizzard.

  • dogmeat25

    Posted Jun 20, 2006 8:41 am GMT

    First of all i wounder what all thoes people said to make GameSpot remove there comments, seconed Blizzard is a corupted greedy company now-- i remeber the good old days with Starcraft and such when blizzard was just a poor cousin of the software companys. they need to learn to calm down and "Let it go."

  • DJ_Steady

    Posted Jun 15, 2006 3:29 pm GMT

    That, in my opinion, is stupid on Blizzards part. What he was doing was legal and he stated that it was unofficial release. What good could possibly come from suing the guy.

  • WillOWisp2121

    Posted Jun 14, 2006 8:03 pm GMT

    Mr. Kopp, you have to understand. The majority of these people aren't too bright. They lack basic reading comprehension skills.

  • WoWseller

    Posted Jun 14, 2006 5:07 pm GMT

    Ok some of you aren't reading this. There is no exploits or cheats in my guide. so why would you say I got what I deserved Disgaeamad? I got the right to sell my guide without hassles again.

    And kendel, you're right. People that say these guides should be banned or are crap etc, either secretly buy it and want to seem tough, don't have enough money or mommy and daddy won't let them use the CC, or like you said they have endless time to do raids 20 hrs a day.

  • kendel

    Posted Jun 14, 2006 3:24 pm GMT

    The fact blizz needs to understand is that many of its subscribers want gold/accounts/tips/guides for getting through the stupid grind parts of the game so they can play with their friends who already have lvl 60s. These outside services keep some people playing and thus paying to play the game. The people who complain about them are usually the people that don't have the cash to pay for those services but instead have endless time to do the things those services provide themselves. Either way the result is the same you end up paying blizzard or paying someone else who pays blizzard to do those things. Every MOG has this issue. They should embrace it rather than fumble about in the dark like several other industries have when their content was used in a manner they didn't anticipate.

  • Surllio

    Posted Jun 14, 2006 1:36 pm GMT

    Ah, people with no life sharing their wonderful exploits with the world so that the world can cheat like they do. I despise those people.

  • Disgaeamad

    Posted Jun 13, 2006 1:54 pm GMT

    Well, looks like he got what he deserved. As Geusprime said, they should just open a realm for cheaters and make them buy money off of Blizzard.

  • majere613

    Posted Jun 13, 2006 7:10 am GMT

    To those people who seem to think that Mr Kopp is "making money from other people's efforts", you need to wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. What the hell do you think Gamespot does? They have all those guides, links to FAQS etc. etc. and all those lovely adverts everywhere, plus all those 'complete' membership fees, to fund them. Gamefaqs is full of FAQs people have written for free, but the hits they get translate directly into cash for the hosts. Mr Kopp's guide is clearly pretty good, or else people would have stopped buying it by now, and I say good on him for helping people who don't have the time and/or inclination to find this stuff out for themselves.

  • cal_hooper

    Posted Jun 13, 2006 1:11 am GMT

    I don't know, I don't really care... I mean, obviously the guy didn't do anything 'wrong', however, I understand Blizzard's concern. If I had come up with something as successfull as WoW, I'd guard it too... with any means necessary....

  • JFFHawke

    Posted Jun 12, 2006 11:06 am GMT

    You know what they say about tightning your grip...

    Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

    All I can say is that Blizzard tries very hard to keep things from getting out of control... Maybe if they spent less time dealing with menial troubles and more time actually balancing the economy we wouldn't have to worry about gold farmers (the illegal kind).

    Honestly in my opinion the economy was broken from the beginning. Face it every item dropped by MOBS your level or higher tend to drop green items several levels below you, forcing you to sell it on the AH. All the while forcing you to buy items your level off the AH, to me this was a ridiculous answer to "forcing" an economy. So what you get is people having to farm items, materials and gold just to make enough to keep up with the games "broken" economy.

    Guys like Brian Kopp, see this flaw and realize that most gamers, casual gamers to be exact truly do not have the time to spend dedicated to gathering gold just to keep up with the Jones', he simply created a guide to help others. Simple as that.

  • tormod

    Posted Jun 12, 2006 10:54 am GMT

    Good for Brian Kopp...nice to hear about the underdog winning. If you have a problem with his guide, then you have a problem with all game guides, including companies like BradyGames and Prima which have made cosiderable money off other companie's IPs.

  • lonesn1per

    Posted Jun 12, 2006 9:01 am GMT

    well if everyone here thinks they can play the damn game without the guide then do so, you DONT NEED TO BUY IT. KOPP keep doing what your doing!
    i mean you people make is sound like he is selling gold for real money. just because someone is selling guides on how to, doesnt make him bad, its another form of a job, like most haters in this site they are probably like 15 or 16 year olds not having a clue how rent is paid.

  • JFFHawke

    Posted Jun 12, 2006 7:14 am GMT

    I would like to add a few comments on this.

    First, I disagree with anyone who tries to "impose" their will on another. Blizzard tried very hard to get this guy to be silenced, and failed. Do not get me wrong I think Blizzard is an outstanding company. I strongly feel they were looking out for everyone by implementing a rules that try to police this kind of action, but honestly can you really do that? Does any guide that helps another really break any rules? Will this upset the economy within WOW? Honestly I don't believe it will.

    Second, Mr. Kopp spent considerable time (his time) developing this guide. It is within his right to sell this guide, in fact all he is selling is knowledge. I do not see anywhere where he sold anything that was apart of Blizzard's intellectual property. If he sold items, gold or characters on Ebay, then he broke the EULA. But selling a "UN"authorized guide is not breaking any rule.

  • nodzer

    Posted Jun 12, 2006 12:59 am GMT

    Everything is possible in America. :-)

  • WoWseller

    Posted Jun 11, 2006 6:35 pm GMT

    Nafda, maybe you can have a warm glass of shut the hell up. My guide isn't gonna turn someone into a farmer. They're not gonna do it 24/7 with a hundred people for the purpose of making real life money and ruin the game.

    for those of you who didn't read the last page, I'm Brian Kopp who this story is about.

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Jun 11, 2006 5:11 pm GMT

    owned. why ruin such a cool game with 'gold mining'?

  • Nafda

    Posted Jun 11, 2006 4:52 pm GMT

    Maybe he can retitle the book WoW: How to ruin in-game economies

  • s0l0123

    Posted Jun 11, 2006 1:06 pm GMT

    *Agrees with xEviLLyAMuSeDx*

  • paulwrath

    Posted Jun 11, 2006 11:51 am GMT

    I don't see why a guy can't make an unofficial guide of any game.

  • lordoverallbaby

    Posted Jun 11, 2006 11:28 am GMT

    a victory for the little guy!

  • warnexus100

    Posted Jun 11, 2006 8:55 am GMT

    blizzard would have gottena bad rep if this case continued

  • warnexus100

    Posted Jun 11, 2006 8:54 am GMT

    luckily blizzard did not jail the dude or soemthing if they did they will have a bad rep when burning crusade comes out

  • dryden555

    Posted Jun 11, 2006 7:20 am GMT

    Blizzard was acting pretty poorly against this guy, who clearly wasn't violating any law. Not cool Blizzard.

  • chickonspeed

    Posted Jun 10, 2006 8:54 pm GMT

    I find it odd that people are arguing over the guide. Don't want to buy it? Don't buy it. Clearly some people did and he was in the right.

  • i_love_my_ds

    Posted Jun 10, 2006 4:38 pm GMT

    what's wrong with selling the guide?

  • Juthan

    Posted Jun 10, 2006 12:49 pm GMT

    Do people really need a WoW guide when Blizzard has gone to extreme lengths to spoonfeed and coddle you all the way to 60? You could give this game to a monkey in the wild and it would hit 60 within a couple of weeks just banging on the keyboard.

    Let the man sell his dumb guide! There must be some slobbering idiots who cannot figure out how to level and make gold (haha!) in this EMO game.

  • roboman34

    Posted Jun 10, 2006 10:36 am GMT

    I been playing wow for 7 months.....You Play how YOU WANT TO PLAY.
    theres ways of getting skills quicklly...but the Gamemasters do change the cracters powers about.....and with the new add on comeing...soon....how do you know it was a set up to make pepole buy the game more???

    i play CITY OF HEROES....CITY OF VILLANS...ect ect ect....with other simullar games....YOU Make it how YOU want to play it.....with what time you have to play it....ITS ALL ABOUT MONEY...HONEY.....
    P.S.....i got milk......

  • meta1

    Posted Jun 10, 2006 5:58 am GMT

    I think it does take some of the fun out of it but not every one has that opinion. Think of it like this, time is money. If you spent the time on working that you spend on WOW you could have a lot more money (but its a lot harder and WOW is fun ) Same princple applies to gold in the game. Now, I personally don't pay for gold but some I know who does put it to me like this, they could spend the countless hrs accomplishing goals in order to make money (farming, inst runs in hope of boe blues, crafting and such) but paying for it is much easier. SOME people value time more than money. For people who have the money to spend and not the time and enjoy WOW heck why not spend the $20 dollars for X amount of gold( ruins the economy but like I said I earn I don't buy). In addition to that (actually regarding the matter) what intellectual property did Brian (strat guy) use that would cause this? Does Blizzard not have enough money that random fan can't make a lil cash too? You could say "well what if everyone did it ?" well not everyone has the time or motivaiton to make this guide. I for one realize that I'm way to damn lazy to do it and would rather have my hunter shoot a ba in the face. I personaly would use this guide once again becuase I'm lazy. I would love to have my lock @ lvl 60 right now but at the same time I know that value of the $ and understand that It could be well spent else where (like on cheesecake). And in closing beer.

  • KarlosOmnis

    Posted Jun 10, 2006 5:24 am GMT

    The difference between gamefaqs.com and him, red-baron, is that gamefaqs don't obtain monetary profits from said guides, whereas this guy clearly does.
    Companies don't like others profitiing from their work, which i say is very fair. The author of this guide i would think put very little effort into this (making notes as he went along i would assume), and makes half of what Blizzard do per game, clever on his part, very clever, but you must see what this isn't appreciated.

  • Red-Baron234

    Posted Jun 10, 2006 12:35 am GMT

    Well Wowseller, couldn't you say that about all the people on GameFaqs.com?

    They write massive guides and details about the whole game and they're Stratagie Book size. I mean World of Warcraft isn't even the hardest game in the world to pick up and learn over time.

    My mum even plays the game after she was watching me playing it and she runs her own guild and everything on a RP server and she learned everything from scratch and she had no problems what so ever. The game is simple to pick up.

    You soon learn of Thottbot or Alakzam soon enough if you want to find something quickly enough and the forums are filled with details.

    The forums are filled with informations on where to go and what to do. You can nearly find everything online.

    But if you say your guides are unique, what is unique about it? I mean can you give us a example of what makes your guide stand out from others if it is worth the price you putting it up for.

    Also I never understood why people would like to power level thier charater in 5-7 days time, that kinda takes the enjoyment from the class and the world it self on your first play though of the game. When you create alt charaters you now understand how the game works better and where to go by yourself.

  • Vriezen

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 9:33 pm GMT

    I think Kopp is well justified. Its not like he is offerering to farm your character for you or has his own clan of "chinese gold farmers" locked up in his basement. Not that I would ever need it, but WoW does take a lot of time. And some people who play end up joining later and all their friends are doing MC and they are stuck building a character from scratch. There are those that aren't really interested in farming gold but are interested in catching up, maybe not in 4 to 7 days but even 2 to 4 weeks would work just as well.

    As for profiting off of someone elses content. Its an unofficial guide. Its like saying if I wrote a biography and included a bunch of stuff that I did or learned from playing a game or sport. It seems a bit ridiculous. Blizzard would have been better off harrassing actual gold farmers that sell gold and characters or spam their website in "group invites" on WoW.

  • WoWseller

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 9:11 pm GMT

    ok lightningbugx, write a book and sell it free

  • lightningbugx

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 8:27 pm GMT

    Kopp is still in the wrong. He is attempting to profit from someone else's property without that person's consent. Now if he offered the info for free, it may be a different story.

  • SirDibblet54

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 6:31 pm GMT

    Frankly i don't care cause i have taken the time to get my own gold, and i think people who buy gold are freaking retarded...its a game. Take that money and do something worthwhile with it...like say buy a life perhaps. If Blizzard wants to sell gold thats fine, i still wouldn't buy it because i think it defeats the purpose of playing.

  • WoWseller

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 4:59 pm GMT

    Corvin my guide is 100% legal as stated on my page. Nothing is going to get you banned.

  • Corvin

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 4:52 pm GMT

    KynKoolij, it seems to me you are angry that people do the exact same thing that yourself just described yourself as doing, buying strategy guides. Whether its "official" or not, it gives people an edge, teaches them things they didn't know, and I'll bet you anything those unofficial guides probably have much juicier, more helpful information since they aren't limited to whatever "official" information the developers want you to have.

    Games like WoW are way too complicated to just expect folks to magically find the best way to do things on their own. Asking around won't necessarily help; people aren't always quick to divulge their big secrets to success. And you said the game is for fun; I have more fun in a game like WoW when I can afford things in game, if I played as much as some of my friends still do, and this guide really has such helpful information, assuming its not teaching any exploits, I don't see what the problem is, this is Capitalism after all.

    I'm glad they dropped the suit. If you don't like it don't buy it.

  • dukerav

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 4:39 pm GMT

    lvl 60 in 4-7 days?? Honestly that takes the fun out of the game for me because to me it doesnt really feel like Ive accomplished anything. I got the game on day of release and I think it took me like 4 or 5 months to get my first char to 60,that was just because of the amount of time I played each night. I tend to get bored with it after a while now tho, one can only WSG or BWL so much.

  • KynKoolij

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 4:10 pm GMT

    If you need to pay some dude with no life $15 for a guide on how to run around killing monsters and talking to people, you are a freaking idiot. Why do people need to pay someone else to play a game or figure it out for them. It's already $50 just to play it, and after the first month $15 a month. I personally have the official strategy guide for WOW, because I like having official information. I like the insight into the game, and all the artwork. If you are playing an online game and paying all this money, why pay someone else to do the thinking for you. What's the dam point. It's supposed to be for fun. I say don't blame the guy for trying to make a quick buck, blame the morons paying for his 'work.' I guess they're too lazy or stupid to just ask someone in the game for advice, or get tips for free on a website like gamespot. Stupidity knows no bounds.

  • kIDgAMER08

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 3:59 pm GMT

    Good for that dude Nice move blizzard!

  • WoWseller

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 3:48 pm GMT

    Pablo620 when I started the suit all I wanted was my right to sell the guide, I didn't even care about money, but I was told I could have gotten lost sale money due to the ebay suspension. I honestly didn't care still about getting damages as long as I can sell the guide again.

  • Pablo620

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 3:33 pm GMT

    Its just people living the american dream...the right to sue

  • quietguy

    Posted Jun 9, 2006 3:04 pm GMT

    Aren't there official UNofficial magazine guides out there in retail stores?

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