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posted by Fnord666 on Monday February 03 2020, @01:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the who-owns-what? dept.

Blizzard now claims full copyright for player-made "custom game" mods:

As influential as Warcraft III was in the real-time strategy genre, the game's most enduring legacy might be as the basis for genre-defining, fan-made custom game spin-offs like Defense of the Ancients (aka Dota) and Auto Chess in its wake. Now, Blizzard is taking steps to ensure it retains complete ownership of any such custom games that originate from its titles in the future, including those that come out of Warcraft III's recently released Reforged update.

As noted by PC Gamer, a recent update to Blizzard's Acceptable Use Policy expands the legal rights that custom-game makers automatically assign to Blizzard (new language highlighted in bold; old language available on The Internet Archive).

Custom Games are and shall remain the sole and exclusive property of Blizzard. Without limiting the foregoing, you hereby assign to Blizzard all of your rights, title, and interest in and to all Custom Games, including but not limited to any copyrights in the content of any Custom Games.

Blizzard's claim on custom-game copyrights is important because while it's hard to effectively copyright the basic concept of a game, you can copyright the original characters, art, and writing associated with the game itself. Blizzard learned this the hard way a decade ago, when Valve bought the Dota copyright from some of the modders who created it.

After Valve's rights were confirmed in a 2012 out-of-court settlement, Valve was able to turn around and create Dota 2. Blizzard, meanwhile, had to settle for creating the Dota-style Heroes of the Storm with its own characters.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Monday February 03 2020, @03:30PM (3 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday February 03 2020, @03:30PM (#953147) Journal

    Or in the physical world, it would be the equivalent to putting into your general business terms that you get assigned the copyright of any painting painted using the brushes you sell.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @03:55PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @03:55PM (#953158)

    '..that you get assigned the copyright of any painting painted using the brushes you sell.'

    Reminds me of some poxy free cloudy web based 'art' software that was doing the rounds a while back (can't remember exactly when, but in the range 10-17 years ago..), the twonks behind it 'asserted' copyright and ownership of all works created using their software, ISTR this lead to a certain amount of artistic trolling...I do so hope that they were happy with their 'ownership' of all those badly drawn penes...

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Monday February 03 2020, @10:26PM (1 child)

      by sjames (2882) on Monday February 03 2020, @10:26PM (#953323) Journal

      That's an interesting point. If someone creates something that is somehow illegal or offensive content, wouldn't that content (and so any legal or social penalties) belong to Blizzard?

      My guess is that Blizzard would disavow ownership of a simulation of Trump buggering a kindergarten classroom so fast it would open a hole in time itself, but according to the EULA, it would be theirs.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @12:50AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @12:50AM (#953360)

        Your mission, sjames, should you choose to accept it...
        ... in the event of your capture, SN will of course, disavow all knowledge of your team.