Let the fun begin. Activision Blizzard suing MBC - Page 6

On October 23 2010 09:39 syllogism wrote:
They should have done this years ago

On October 23 2010 09:42 syllogism wrote:

Astute legal analysis here

On October 23 2010 10:35 deafhobbit wrote:


What makes you think they need to? One of the defining characteristics of Chaebol is their ability to directly influence the government. South Korea isn't as corrupt as it was before the Asian Financial Crisis, but it's no model of pure governance.

And on the money front, Activision Blizzard is big, but it's utterly dwarfed by the size of the Chaebols. Wikipedia lists Activison Blizzard's total revenue for 2009 as 4.8 billion, compared to the SK group which made 78.6 billion in 2009, and Samsung group which made 173.4 billion in 2008. AB is completely out of their league.

On October 23 2010 10:29 Slow Motion wrote:

I have no idea what Korean IP law is like, but under U.S. law it's settled that the gaming company has a copyright in all the gameplay that is created from the game (it's sad that the case law on this was developed by old ass judges who have no idea what the gaming industry is like, but whatever). I hope this isn't the case in Korea but I'm not optimistic.

Edit: if anyone is interested the case that illustrates U.S. law on this subject is Stern Electronics v. Kaufman, 669 F.2d 852 (2nd Cir. 1982).

On October 23 2010 10:53 Magus wrote:

Um, what? Seriously?

In my mind the IP rights work like this.

Does the inventor of the bicycle own all the rights to everything ever done on a bicycle?
Does the inventor of the paintbrush own the rights to every painting ever done by anyone?
Does the inventor of ink own the rights to just about all of the written work ever?

No, to every single one of those. So why would the creator of a game own the rights to every single match of that game that was played? That isn't how it works with other games like baseball, basketball, hockey, etc.

On October 23 2010 10:50 toadstool wrote:


You don't get my point. Revenue is not a good indicator of who's going to win the legal matter, it's how much money they're willing to pump into it.

Starcraft might be worth 10 million dollars in marketing, they're not going to spend $50 million to protect it.

On October 23 2010 10:41 Bleak wrote:
I'm just a law student here but I think the main argument here is that Blizzard intends the Starcraft scene in progaming is to be continued through Starcraft 2. Blizzard has invested a lot of money and effort for SC 2 (you may like the game or not, there's actually a product ) and wants the SC2 to take off. If the majority follows BW, they'll lose some of the benefits of the progaming scene. The logical solution here would be that Blizzard could make an agreement with the KESPA or whomever that has control over Korean BW scene, and agree on a money to be paid to Blizzard in order to "compensate" for the loss of benefits from the wieving that BW gets. As far as I can get, if KESPA or whomever has the control over the BW progaming / broadcasting refused to do so, and in that case, Blizzard wants to sue them. The reason why Blizzard did not sue through all the long years that BW scene was broadcasted, is that through the Korean scene, they gained attention, popularity, advertisement and benefits of these so and so on. But,since BW has kind of fulfilled its role for Blizzard's interests, all that past advertisement does not matter now I suppose.

Would love if theres someone with alot of knowledge on IP rights would clarify this case though Just tried to understand the reasons of this suit.

On October 23 2010 11:00 deafhobbit wrote:


And you're still not getting mine.

1) Money isn't the whole story, Chaebol's have the ability to directly influence the government without it.

2) Furthermore, the size of the Chaebols give them numerous advantages over Blizzard.

a) They'll have access to better lawyers.
b) They'll be able to wage a better PR campaign.
c) Since it's a many vs one scenario, they likely will collectively spend more. PL teams are dirt cheap advertising, and sponsoring them helps the Chaebol's PR a lot as well. Collectively, they likely value BW more than AB values Sc2.
d) Finally, there's more to this than value calculations. Chaebol are mostly run by their founding families, and emotion can play a role in influencing their decisions. If you don't think a company like SK Group or Samsung gets pissed when a pipsqueak like AB tries to sue them, and would take a great pleasure in crushing them in court, you clearly think human beings are more like calculators than i do.

On October 23 2010 11:03 Xiphos wrote:


Don't forget that KT and STX is in that who Chaebols group too! So they will probably something about it as well.

On October 23 2010 11:04 leakingpear wrote:
Can people stop citing things invented before patent and copyright law as examples of things without patents or copyrights? Soccer, Paintbrushes, Ink, all invented before any form of copyright law was created. I'd actually be surprised if the Penny Farthing (the first ever commercial bicycle) wasn't copyrighted in some form by the original inventor.

That's not even getting started on the absurdness of those analogies but whatever it's like stopping a flood with a sheet of paper.

On October 23 2010 11:04 NukeTheStars wrote:
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Starcraft isn't a tool for creating entertainment, it is the entertainment in and of itself. I mean, you can say "Photoshop doesn't get paid for every photoshopped ad" but you can look at any movie which is based on a game. Like Doom, for example. That movie rested on the shoulders of the franchise and made money. And yes, they had to license the Doom name and elements and pay royalties. Or smaller examples, like Adam Sandler playing Shadow of the Collosus in Reign Over Me as a crucial plot device. They had to pay for that too. Or the Zelda music in Scott Pilgrim.

The Starcraft music plays during pro games. They use the Starcraft name and characters to promote the games. The channel makes money through advertising. I don't know... I don't think Blizzard is completely on the wrong page here. But, like I said, it's very complicated.

On October 23 2010 11:10 Whiladan wrote:



But but...Proleague! And...and Activision Blizzard!

In all seriousness, just because Blizzard ignored the violation of their IP rights for a time does make them any less deserving of compensation for the usage of their property. Blizzard is a business and should be expected to operate as such.

On October 23 2010 11:10 Whiladan wrote:



But but...Proleague! And...and Activision Blizzard!

In all seriousness, just because Blizzard ignored the violation of their IP rights for a time does make them any less deserving of compensation for the usage of their property. Blizzard is a business and should be expected to operate as such.

On October 23 2010 11:08 Slow Motion wrote:

No, his analogies are actually not bad. You are mixing up copyright and patent law. There are specific requirement you must meet in order to copyright something. Unfortunately, judges have ruled that gameplay meets the "fixation" requirement, which is a mistake imo.