Jumping into the battle royale between Blizzard Entertainment and MDY Industries. Public Knowedge (”PK”), filed a friend of the court brief on Friday May 3oth.

PK officially supports neither side in the dispute, but notes that–

“Blizzard’s argument would eviscerate the traditional relationship between copyright and contract and, in the process, upset the delicate equilibrium between the rights of copyright holders to manage their intellectual property (“IP”), and the rights of the public to use the products that embody that IP. Under Blizzard’s theory, a copyright owner could not only contractually impose the most onerous restrictions on its customers—restrictions that undermine rights guaranteed by copyright and First Amendment law—but could also enforce those conditions with the threat of copyright law’s high statutory damages.”

“Eviscerate” is a term generally reserved for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft in-game play, but it pretty neatly summarizes the problems with Blizzard’s legal theories. For example, if Blizzard were to prevail under its expansive theory, it would allow game creators (and virtually any copyright owner) to sue individuals for enormous copyright damages regardless of whether the individual violated the copyright act. That would be a neat trick.

Oral arguments on both motions for summary judgment are set for June 26th.

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Blizzard, Copyright, Glider, Public Knowledge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.