https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp99
A few weeks back we looked at how Nintendo and Riot Games were protecting their gaming customers in court, and Blizzard is right there with these other game giants in this regard. This week was already big week for Blizzard, with BlizzCon tickets going on sale as well as a new Hearthstone expansion and year, and an announced drastic re-design to Heroes of the Storm. But the week also was successful in court for the company from Irvine.
Last year, Blizzard sued a German company called Bossland in California federal court as well as in German courts where that other company is located, alleging copyright infringement. Bossland is one of the leading developers of cheats and bots for use with several Blizzard games, including programs called Honorbuddy, Stormbuddy, and Hearthbuddy. Essentially, the argument for Blizzard is that Bossland's programs bypass Blizzard's cheat protection technology, which is a hacking action that allegedly violates the DMCA, while also allowing users to play modified versions of these games, AKA, unauthorized derivative works of the game titles that are copyright infringements.
The cheating and use of bots causes damage to Blizzard because it negatively affects their normal paying customers, and therefore potentially their reputation and market share. With these big companies putting lots of intellectual property and programming in place to protect their rights and their consumers, it is no surprise that Blizzard has multiple actionable claims against a company like Bossland. It's also no surprise these legal claims are fairly strong.
Bossland decided to not defend itself actively in the U.S. case, so a quick judgement was achieved this week in favor of Blizzard. Blizzard proved over 42,000 violations, which led to over 8.5 million dollars of statutory damages. An injunction against further sales or marketing of the cheat programs in the U.S. has also now been established. However, that ruling doesn't stop Bossland from operating in other countries, and the CEO of that company vows to keep fighting especially in their hometown German courts.
The Bottom Line is, Blizzard is just like other major gaming companies in protecting its customers and future revenue streams by fighting cheaters with bans and even legal actions like these. It's doubtful the hefty copyright damages award can be effectively collected in this case, but it's a positive development for fair players who want to keep enjoying all the big things Blizzard releases in this week and future weeks.
Finally, a few weeks ago we explained the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominees and the potential nuclear option of removing filibusters for such nominees. That has come to pass this week, as the Republican Senators could not obtain sufficient votes to overcome a filibuster, so we will see Gorsuch on the court...but it's unclear whether this nuclear option move will be a net loss long term as the filibuster because less and less pertinent for important issues. Stay tuned, everyone.
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Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy
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