Blizzard Prepares to Sue Over Illegal StarCraft TV Broadcasts

[Igen]

Guys blizzard is in the right here. It is a group selling their product for money with out any gain for Blizzard. If a TV station started bring in their own cameras to NFL games and they released the videos on their own stations they would get the living hell sued out of them.

Blizzard doesn't own a sports league and the NFL doesn't own football.

NFL didnt make football....

Blizzard hand crafted and polished their "sport" to the point where it can be supported as such (tournament balanced games take thousands of man hours of effort to balance). And they have every right to demand payment from the players, and payment from the observers (especially when the broadcasters are making money off of the event).

Hell, we do pay to play, its still $20 a box for starcraft, and $40 for starcraft 2

 

[ZephrC]

You know, I hate to say this, because I like Blizzard and totally see where they're coming from, but frankly the way western society currently views the way people and corporations should be able to own ideas and information is... well... batshit insane, and completely unsustainable.

I realize it's very important for someone that comes up with an idea to have a shot at profiting from it and establishing themselves as responsible for it, and so I certainly support the idea of copyrights and patents are important to the way our society functions. However, could you imagine a world where we gave Louis Pasteur's great great grandkids a royalty every time someone bought pasteurized milk? A world where we had to hunt down all of Mozart's descendants to give them money before we could put his music in a movie? Because the way we keep extending the time limits on IP rights, that's the way we're headed. We already have a system in which people get to live their entire lives off of the work of a dead relative, which is frankly just creepy, and it's only getting worse.

And then you have the ridiculous level to which IP rights protect things. It's not like Korean TV stations and the KeSPA are selling copies of StarCraft. Except of course in the sense that because of them Blizzard is selling more copies. They're just showing people playing legally purchased copies of the game. This is being compared to athletics leagues protecting their intellectual rights, but I kinda think it's more like if the guy who invented basketball tried to sue every TV station that ran any basketball games without his permission. It doesn't really make any sense.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Blizzard is the only video game developer that bans and sues people because they actually did something wrong.

 

[jono793]

Somewhere in the universe a Tyranid is cholking on his own mandible.

 

[ASnogarD]

I agree with dexter111 for the most part...

Blizzard made the game , but did not make the scene in Korea... that was done by other organisations.
Kotick now wants to grab a chunk of that pie hence the changes to the LAN system ( no LAN no private networks gaming , no LAN matches without Bliz having a say ). I wouldnt be all too suprised to see SC 2 cracked to bypass Battle net... hell or even have SC 2 completely ignored by the Korean scenes.
Imagine if a manager for a big sport ( like say ...tennis ) tried to introduce , Tennis 2 with upgraded courts and rules ... and then demanded a cut off every significant tournament involving Tennis 2, the likelyhood is most would simply carry on with the norm and ignore the new version.

Make no mistake , I smell Koticks involvement with Blizzard's sudden hostility to Korea.

 

[spartan1077]

*sigh* Is blizzard run by George Lucas now?
Seriously though, can't they just make them pay the money instead of suing and shutting down the broadcast? I'd tell them to slide some money my way and they can keep broadcasting their crap.

 

[bob1052]

Let's look at it this way. If you played a football game and let the whole world watch it and you made money from it. Would you have to pay the people who made your clothes, the football, etc...?

If the game of football was one group's IP then you would.

*sigh* Is blizzard run by George Lucas now?
Seriously though, can't they just make them pay the money instead of suing and shutting down the broadcast? I'd tell them to slide some money my way and they can keep broadcasting their crap.

Blizzard has been in negotiations with KeSPA for a long time.

 

[bob1052]

suprised to see SC 2 cracked to bypass Battle net... hell or even have SC 2 completely ignored by the Korean scenes.
Imagine if a manager for a big sport ( like say ...tennis ) tried to introduce , Tennis 2 with upgraded courts and rules ... and then demanded a cut off every significant tournament involving Tennis 2, the likelyhood is most would simply carry on with the norm and ignore the new version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOMTV_Global_Starcraft_II_League

A 1 month season in the GSL is televised with ~$170,000USD(payed in KRW) in winnings.

Blizzard isn't hostile to Korea, just to people who commit copyright infringement and the Korean scene for Starcraft 2 isn't suffering as a result.

 

[Fearzone]

Blizzard is gone. It's Activision now.

Also, it's a game, not a sport.

 

[deth2munkies]

Article is a tad biased. It's based on a press conference with Paul Sams, COO of Blizzard, KeSPA issued a response that was translated from Fomos on TeamLiquid:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173841

Both sides of this are being complete dicks in one way or the other, there's a very simple compromise situation available, but both sides shun it in favor of pride.

As a note, Blizzard said they haven't, but are considering (depending on the response) filing an actual injuction against the broadcasts, they're still going on atm.

 

[QuantumT]

If the game of football was one group's IP then you would.

Which just goes to show how stupid intellectual property really is. Try applying these rules to real property and see how it works.

To use that jersey you bought in any public broadcast requires that you pay royalties to the maker of the jersey. Nevermind that you already bought it and you own it.

To use that baseball glove you bought in any public broadcast requires that you pay royalties to the maker of the baseball glove. Nevermind that you already bought it and you own it.

Need more examples? People would have to go on TV naked and without any props to avoid not going broke from royalties. It's ridiculous.

Again, this is not a Blizzard hosted event and for that reason this cannot be compared to the NFL.

Ok, you've made the point that real property and intellectual property aren't the same. Because of that difference, the rules protecting them have to be different. Let's examine the difference when I try to sell them

For real property, I just hand over the physical item and we're all good.

For intellectual property it's harder. It more like I give you permission to have it, since it's possible for you just go out and copy it.

Intellectual property is incredibly important though. Let's say that I've developed a new drug, which on average costs $800 million. Without intellectual property, I have absolutely no way to recover that money. What this means is that I would never have bothered in the first place.

 

[The Random One]

Nobody walks into say Brazil and shakes down kids for the right to play the game, or demands the entire nation basically pay a company from another nation for one of their major pre-occupations. Indeed I think most major sports have their orgins kept deliberatly ambigious for this reason, allowing them to be global property. Even if the universal rules for Soccor used today are an English creation (as I remember reading, established in the 1800s) the game is far older. Korea seems to be argueing that "Starcraft" has become akin to Soccor or other sports and the property of the world so to speak.

You're free to play football (or 'soccer' as you weird gringos call it) anywhere where there are four posts and a ball, but try to create any kind of championship more complex than a neighborhood league and FIFA will be on your ass. FIFA is the international association that doesn't own football except that they do.

I'm Brazilian BTW and the next World Cup is going to be here. There's a law in here that forbids alcoholic beverages from being sold next to stadium during games (due to several cases of hooliganism). FIFA has already said they'll pull the plug on the world cup if this restriction isn't withdrawn. Why? Because some of its largest sponsors are brands of beer. There's already a bill underway to give World Cup games special exemption from the law. This is just an example, on the day of a game a stadium's immediate surrounding might as well give up their national sovereignity and surrender to FIFA.

So my point is, both sides have some merit to their arguments on this one, but the legal history is on Blizzard's side.

 

[bob1052]

Blizzard is gone. It's Activision now.

Also, it's a game, not a sport.

You can say football is just a game, not a sport, too.

A sport is nothing more than a game with a following. Starcraft is a sport.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

"Korea is the only region in the world where we have had to resort to litigation to protect our IP rights." Moments later, the COO corrected himself, adding "but we'll gladly litigate the shit out of you for any other conceivable reason."

There, that's better.

 

[bob1052]

If the game of football was one group's IP then you would.

Which just goes to show how stupid intellectual property really is. Try applying these rules to real property and see how it works.

To use that jersey you bought in any public broadcast requires that you pay royalties to the maker of the jersey. Nevermind that you already bought it and you own it.

To use that baseball glove you bought in any public broadcast requires that you pay royalties to the maker of the baseball glove. Nevermind that you already bought it and you own it.

Need more examples? People would have to go on TV naked and without any props to avoid not going broke from royalties. It's ridiculous.

Again, this is not a Blizzard hosted event and for that reason this cannot be compared to the NFL.

Clothing is physical property, which is different than IP and thus treated differently.

The brand of the clothing is the IP and it is not uncommon to see tv shows censor brand icons or to see a sitcom parody a brand instead of using it (koka-kola instead of coca-cola).