Selling World of Warcraft In-Game Content for Real Money : World of Warcraft General Discussions

t has come to our attention that certain individuals are selling Blizzard's in-game property for cash on auction sites such as eBay and on personal websites. The World of Warcraft Terms of Use clearly state that all of the content in World of Warcraft is the property of Blizzard, and Blizzard does not allow "in game" items to be sold for real money. Accordingly, Blizzard Entertainment will take any and all actions necessary to stop this behavior. Not only do we believe that it is illegal, but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun. In order to promote a fun and fair environment for all our customers, we are actively investigating those individuals who engage in this inappropriate activity and reserve the right to take legal action against these individuals to protect World of Warcraft for all those who "play by the rules." If you are found to be selling in-game property (such as coins, items, or characters), for real money, you will lose your characters and accounts, and Blizzard Entertainment reserves its right to pursue legal action against you as well.

We also want to remind potential buyers in the game to please refrain from buying in-game property with real money. We understand the temptation to purchase better items, but Blizzard, and not the seller, does own all in-game property. In addition, we feel that characters can find ample equipment and money within the game through their own adventuring and questing. Please understand that if you do purchase in-game property from sellers on eBay and personal sites, we may temporarily suspend your account, and at the very least, delete the offending items.

Thank you for understanding our position. Blizzard Entertainment is committed to maintaining the atmosphere of fair play and fun in World of Warcraft.

I hope something like this goes to court so they can finally figure out who owns what.

Do the disclaimers like "All items, names, and graphics are property of Blizzard Entertainment. You are bidding on my time while playing the game, and not the items themselves." ?

All games, such as SWG, and have the same problem lol... They should find a way to fix it...

there are a ton of essays over the net as to who owns what. Some they you play the game that you own the items, others say the items are owned by the company. I would think that the game company woudl have to show a loss in profit because of this. We are not selling burned copies of Warcraft, we are selling the items inside the game, which never leave the game.

Copyright is not as simple as showing loss of profit (and forget about responding that it oughtta be, the fact in court is that it's not).

Copyright includes the right to take legal action if:
- someone uses your work in a way you find morally objectionable (moral right)
- someone reproduces your work in a different way or media (mechanical reproduction)
- someone distributes work you have created (like graphic images or little bits o data)

But here's the big issue. I've been to multimedia conferences and listened to legal panels on copyright issues and the one thing all of them agree on is this:

Don't ask whether you can win a copyright lawsuit. Ask yourself whether you can afford to go to court over a copyright issue.

guest wrote:Copyright is not as simple as showing loss of profit (and forget about responding that it oughtta be, the fact in court is that it's not).

Copyright includes the right to take legal action if:
- someone uses your work in a way you find morally objectionable (moral right)
- someone reproduces your work in a different way or media (mechanical reproduction)
- someone distributes work you have created (like graphic images or little bits o data)

But here's the big issue. I've been to multimedia conferences and listened to legal panels on copyright issues and the one thing all of them agree on is this:

Don't ask whether you can win a copyright lawsuit. Ask yourself whether you can afford to go to court over a copyright issue.

-Someone distributes your work you have created. There is also a law somewhere out there that states that you have the right distribute some elses work as long as the owner is making a profit, or the distributer isnt making any profit from it. This is why Kazaa is up and running, because people can share p2p wise. This is also why people dont get sued for singing some elses song at chereoky night. Now if you take a girl that can sing well and you go and make her sing a britney spears song and you charge people for it, then you have your copyright !@#$%^*.

Sorry im just a bit drunk from today/yesturday or 2004/2005 yaaaaaaaaaaaaa go 2005!!!!!!!!!!!!! wooooooooooooooooooo

guest wrote:Copyright is not as simple as showing loss of profit (and forget about responding that it oughtta be, the fact in court is that it's not).

Copyright includes the right to take legal action if:
- someone uses your work in a way you find morally objectionable (moral right)
- someone reproduces your work in a different way or media (mechanical reproduction)
- someone distributes work you have created (like graphic images or little bits o data)

But here's the big issue. I've been to multimedia conferences and listened to legal panels on copyright issues and the one thing all of them agree on is this:

Don't ask whether you can win a copyright lawsuit. Ask yourself whether you can afford to go to court over a copyright issue.

As for copyright, I am not making WoW cds and selling them.

Like I said you'll find a ton of reports saying the items in game are legal to sell and you'll see reports that say that blizzard owns them all.

Blizzard might own everything in the game, but I'm not taking anything out of the game and selling it to my neighbor. I'm selling items in the game to people in the game. The item never leaves game. I doubt you will ever see this go to court.

If blizzard takes me to court and I win then it's open season on pepole selling items in all games, but if I lose then I'm in deep !@#$%^*. It only takes blizzard one time to lose to screw everything up for game companies and they know this, so why risk legal action when simpling asking ebay to take down all the auctions and threating letters to people to knonk if off work so well.

Your last point concerning the success of legal action merely augments the point i was making. Thank you for the extra ammunition.

However, if you think you'd easily win in court, do us all a favor and just point your real name here and where you're selling all this stuff that's your's.

One last note on this:

Not making money off distribution of a product is only one issue in copyright, but certainly not the only one. If I distribute MS Windows to all my friends and make no money off it, don't think MS wouldn't easily win a copyright suit against me....even if I could argue that my friends would never have paid MS for Windows.

I don't think copyright is the problem here I think it's the selling of intellectual property.

in 2003 I made close to 100K in selling SWG credits. I did report my earning to the IRS and had to pay around 9K in taxes. Sony has yet to contact me or send me an emails on this. I have had a couple of account banned because I was getting sloppy in the way I was trading the credits near the end. All the credits I had in the game were duped.

So think about this, if you knew a dupe in WoW and could make 100K of real money in a four month time would you tell blizzard and get a pat on the back or would you dupe you heart out and buy a new house like I did?

Blizzard will not take you to court, they will simply ban your account and take the items off the other player (minimum).

They will then let YOU take them to court if your stupid enough or like most people do just !@#$%^* about it and move on to another game.

i doubt if you bought a new house, made 100k or have even made it to 8th grade yet.

But, no I wouldn't futz around with that sort of thing.

Will you get caught? I dunno. Lots of guys sell crack and make more than 100k. I suppose they won't get caught either....guess that makes em darn clever..

you can doubt all you want, all I wanted to do was make $100 a week and it turned into something awesome... check out psalm23swg on ebay... and moutain_man add em up and get back to me.

Does the Terms of Use have any legal weight when you click 'OK' and agree to them? If so, it seems like a clear slam dunk case in Blizzard favor.

"The World of Warcraft Terms of Use clearly state that all of the content in World of Warcraft is the property of Blizzard, and Blizzard does not allow "in game" items to be sold for real money. "