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United States238 Posts
Source: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/news/view.php?article_id=2271814
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Blizzard Entertainment's Korean e-sports broadcast + partner Gretech and Blizzard Entertainment has announced today that they have filed the lawsuit against MBCPlus Media (henceforth referred as MBCGame) in October 28th for IP rights violation and unauthorized use of the product.
Blizzard Entertainment has always protected their content against the companies who would use Blizzard's IP property for commercial business purposes. Worldwide, e-sports related broadcasters, when they do a tournament or broadcasting using Blizzard games, they have always gotten a license from Blizzard to do so, in accordance to the international IP rights laws. Through that, they acknowledge and support Blizzard's ownership of the IP. But in 2007, Blizzard found certain e-sports groups in Korea were partaking in illegal deals in regards to StarCraft tournament rights and broadcasting rights without Blizzard's permission.
Specifically, MBCGame has run e-sports tournaments such as BigFile MSL and STX Cup without acquiring legal sublicense from GomTV or license from Blizzard, and continued to produce many events and programs relating to StarCraft. From 2007 to now, there have been multiple attempts for a fair negotiation with MBCGame, but nothing came out of it. Thus, Blizzard Entertainment and GomTV has declared to MBCGame that they will sue them with every method available to protect Blizzard Entertainment's IP rights. Despite this, MBCGame continued to broadcast StarCraft content. MBCGame then stated they will force MSL in October 26th, making it impossible to avoid a lawsuit.
GomTV's representative, Bae In Sik, stated, "This act from MBCGame is done so willingly and purposefully to acknowledge that they have violated Blizzard's IP rights. Every time there has been some progress made in the negotiation, they have brought forth new terms, resetting the entire negotiation process, we have realized that the lawsuit is the final choice we have left in regards to MBCGame's IP rights violation. We've stated multiple times, our vision of e-sports is to protect IP rights of the original developer while developing e-sports business."
Blizzard Entertainment's COO, Paul Sams, stated, "We did our absolute best during last 3 years to state a fair and balanced negotiations, but we never received any fair terms stated, and it is unfortunate that we must find our solution in the courts as our final resort. We are certainly proud of StarCraft's position in e-sports, and we know very well that there are many players and e-sports fans who wish to continue StarCraft tournaments and events. Players and viewers are very important to us, and our ultimate goal is to provide them with the best experience using Blizzard's content."
Paul Sams added, "We've always believed firmly that StarCraft leagues can co-exist with GSL, and we hope that MBCGame can continue broadcasting StarCraft tournaments and events. But, for this to happen, it is important to finish licensing negotiations in order to protect our IP rights first. Once negotiations involving StarCraft successfully ends, and MBCGame shows the necessary trust -- needed for a successful business relations -- to cooperate with us, we are more than willing to provide a negotiation for licensing StarCraft 2."
Paul Sams re-emphasized Blizzard's e-sports plans focus around supporting global game communities and developing them further through high level of quality from Blizzard games, rather than profits. Blizzard continued supporting e-sports through game patches, and supporting leagues and tournaments. Broadcasters are taking in all the benefits, but at the same time, refuse to acknowledge basic IP rights of Blizzard regarding StarCraft.
This May, Blizzard Entertainment and GomTV finalized a partnership deal where GomTV will be the sole e-sports broadcaster and rights holder for the Blizzard games -- including StarCraft, WarCraft 3, World of WarCraft, StarCraft II, and its expansions. With this, any group who wishes to broadcast or support Blizzard games in e-sports, for commercial purposes, must acquire a sublicense from GomTV. In order to continue finding a way to end the negotiation, Blizzard and GomTV introduced a 3rd party arbitrator in the negotiation with MBCGame, and this negotiation will continue even while lawsuit is in progress.
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blizz claims about furthering the esport scene of SC:BW is just laughable. they already gave up on SC:BW on blizzcon.
i honestly hope they lose the case.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On November 01 2010 11:13 dybydx wrote:
blizz claims about furthering the esport scene of SC:BW is just laughable. they already gave up on SC:BW on blizzcon.
i honestly hope they lose the case.
Who do you think they were going to bring over for BW when all the top players are under Kespa and all foreigners have switched to SC2?,....lets think before posting gut jerk opinions please -_-
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They just recycled everything they have said in the past months. Its funny that the paragraph which says that GSL and BW can coexist ends up saying that maybe liscencing for SC2 will be possible.
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If this were in a common law jurisdiction, I don't see how Blizzard could win this lawsuit.
I'm unfamiliar with the law in Korea, but boy do I hope it's similar.
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Heh... if you can sue a 4 year old...
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I find it funny that most of the replies in the korean article seems to think Kespa and the stations are the assholes, and most people on TL used to think Kespa was the asshole then changed their minds to Blizzards being the assholes. Pardon the excessive use of the word 'asshole'.
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On November 01 2010 11:19 raviy wrote:
If this were in a common law jurisdiction, I don't see how Blizzard could win this lawsuit.
I'm unfamiliar with the law in Korea, but boy do I hope it's similar.
If it were common law, Blizzard would win.
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... It's Blizzard vs a branch of the Korean government...
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United States238 Posts
On November 01 2010 11:25 kineSiS- wrote:
... It's Blizzard vs a branch of the Korean government...
It still has to go by the law, government included. If law says Blizzard is right, then government can't turn that around.
But seeing how corrupted Korean government is, I guess it is possible.
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On November 01 2010 11:25 kineSiS- wrote:
... It's Blizzard vs a branch of the Korean government...
No that'd might be true if they were sueing kespa, but instead they opted to sue MBC the little guy of the 3.
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United States7481 Posts
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On November 01 2010 11:26 Selith wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2010 11:25 kineSiS- wrote:
... It's Blizzard vs a branch of the Korean government... It still has to go by the law, government included. If law says Blizzard is right, then government can't turn that around. But seeing how corrupted Korean government is, I guess it is possible.
I've said this before in other threads. If the Korean government is really that corrupt, I don't see Blizzard ever releasing another game in Korea, other game companies would follow suit and put a boycott to releasing products in Korea.
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KeSPA needs to go. I think Blizzard should be suing kespa and getting rid of them first, that would make negotiations with MBC a hell of a lot easier.
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ALLEYCAT BLUES49490 Posts
On November 01 2010 11:29 sluggaslamoo wrote:
KeSPA needs to go. I think Blizzard should be suing kespa and getting rid of them first, that would make negotiations with MBC a hell of a lot easier.
and where will the progamers go?
if Gretech can capture all the sponsers and progamers and replicate KeSPA's system then I'm fine with it,but the chances of that happening?nada(no pun intended).
KeSPA should win for the sake of BW and E-Sports and natural balance of life.
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This isn't going to end well. I think it's pretty obvious that Blizz wants brood war players to purchase sc2 and make them lots of money. They won vs. glider, I don't think they'll have any problem beating the korean bw scene.
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On November 01 2010 11:11 Selith wrote:
But in 2007, Blizzard found certain e-sports groups in Korea were partaking in illegal deals in regards to StarCraft tournament rights and broadcasting rights without Blizzard's permission.
This made me laugh so maybe I don't know something and someone can explain it to me? I'm sure blizz knew about osl/msl before '07.
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in 07 kespa started charging ogn and mbc for broadcasting games aka making money off of sc.
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This is just total bullshit, their idea of fair negotiation is $6/700,000 per starleague if it wants to be broadcast on more than 1 day... There's simply not that much money in Brood War and they know it. Sik and Sams are just lying through their teeth here e.g. "Every time there has been some progress made in the negotiation, they have brought forth new terms, resetting the entire negotiation process" and "We've always believed firmly that Starcraft leagues can co-exist with GSL". Some integrity would be appreciated.
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EPT
