usually? no. sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. as far as the law is concerned there is nothing accepted as a general rule. that means they're not seen as legal contracts by any court, the evaluation of the enforceability of them comes from the circumsances of the case. it's a grey area.
Actually in common law, courts do find EULAs to be contracts and will treat it as any other contract. Accepting or using the product via EULA will legally bind you to the contract. However, many courts do have a dislike for standard form contracts and will impose contra proferentem depending on whether how unreasonable the terms are by their interpretation. Depending on jurisdiction, the contract may not be enforced, but as a general rule, they do legally bind you to it at first.
On November 15 2010 03:23 nokz88 wrote: Moves/BOs/strategies being IP of players, EULA not applying because people don't read it, WTF... the amount of ignorance in this thread is overwhelming...
Thissssss. I can understand people wanting KeSPA to win because they are concerned with broodwar, but really there is no legal basis for KeSPA coming out on top in this.
do soccer players pay the soccer ball manufacturers for a match
isn't this actually a good argument though?
No, in soccer the ball, the median of play is usually obscured because it is so small on the screen, as well the company who provided the ball probably provided it because they want the brand to be seen, thus, the copyright is provided so that the soccer league can use the ball without fear of legal action, but in SC, the median of play (the game) is clear as day to any RTS fan, and not having that copyright provided can allow blizzard to take any number of steps towards making KeSPA stop airing SC, like copyright infringement, to wrap it up i have to say, i believe e-sports can be considered sports but that doesn't mean you can avoid copyrights like KeSPA is trying to do, if the soccer league used and advertised a brand of ball that they didn't have a copyright for or otherwise the producer didn't want advertised for some reason, there would be a shitstorm of legal action.
Teddy just dominated this entire thread. Summed up everything relevant and disregarded everything moronic throughout 15 pages of garbage in 3 concise paragraphs. Of course there is always corporation vs. corporation greed, and anyone who seriously things KeSPA is 'non-profit' at heart needs to get their head checked out. While I am certainly far from an avid blizzard supporter, KeSPA has very obviously been doing some seriously shady shit for a while now. On a note of personal amusement:
Rofl, you guys either A. got trolled by Gonodactylus harder than i've seen any thread get trolled in a long time, or B. Spent 10+ pages of thread arguing with someone that very clearly has a mental disability (or is so absurdly pro KeSPA/burn blizzard that he's not going to hear an inch of anyone else's argument or consider any information outside his own viable.) And yet, the information he provides, he won't site until '50 people publically apologize' Not to mention endlessly spewing nonsensical bullshit and claiming to have a PhD once he feels threatened because someone else on the thread was actually semi-educated on the subject. And then shortly thereafter indirectly admits he does not have a PhD in jack shit when other posters begin pointing out his lack of ability to even write or make points properly... much less get a doctorate. Especially funny because the person he was going back and forth with was writing coherent, logical posts, wile Gonodactylus was just repeating the same dead-end logic with more and more hostility as he went on. I was shocked that anyone even continued to respond to him past this point, I couldn't help myself but to read through the rest of the thread, way too much entertainment to pass up during a dead day at work.
For those of you who seem to actually have some legal background, is there any precedent for athletes having IP rights over their "moves," so to speak?
On November 15 2010 05:35 FrostOtter wrote: For those of you who seem to actually have some legal background, is there any precedent for athletes having IP rights over their "moves," so to speak?
No, because they do not obtain legal documentations and do not proceed to any process of copyrighting or trademarking those "moves." Just because they do those moves first or many times, does not mean they have any rights to it.
Michael Jordan and Nike has trademarked his famous jumpman logo, but players can use that certain move in a basketball game.
IF they have copyrighted and published a book about their strategies, ideas, thoughts, philosophy behind the game or possibly even game theory, they have some IP rights about it. However, including too many references to another copyright or trademark will infringe the rights of the owner of those IP rights.
IP is stupid anyway, whoever thought it was possible to own ideas (that are made public)?. returning to the sports analogy:
the manufactures of the equipment, wether it be the ball, the shoes or whatever else, do also own IP rights on all that stuff. what would you thik if they suddenly wanted to charge the stadiums owners a fee for selling broadcasting rights to TV stations?.
I don't think it's such a bad analogy, for the correct analogy, let's imagine for a second that there was actually and inventor and developer of the game of football, would it be right for him to try to control the leagues in such a way?.
when you see a game match wether it is sport or esport you aren't there to see the players or team do their thing, i would say that a match should be owned by the players/teams but this is obviously not a consensus and there won't be any consensus on these matters any time soon. IP rights is a shady area, specially in this digital age.
I'm surprised how long of history KeSPA and Blizzard had. "42. In Germany, when NaDa was invited for a show match, someone re-streamed this though a Korean Live-Streaming website (called AFRIKA), KeSPA called the managers and made him GG in the middle of a game and end the game immediately. 43. As soon as NaDa moved to the SC2 scene, KeSPA had 'Deleted' NaDa's database. Later they re-uploaded it due to the fan's anger and they replied back as a 'Glitch' in the system."
Thats insane. I remember reading somewhere isn't KeSPA a non-profit? correct me if I'm wrong.
On November 15 2010 06:07 latan wrote: IP is stupid anyway, whoever thought it was possible to own ideas (that are made public)?. returning to the sports analogy:
the manufactures of the equipment, wether it be the ball, the shoes or whatever else, do also own IP rights on all that stuff. what would you thik if they suddenly wanted to charge the stadiums owners a fee for selling broadcasting rights to TV stations?.
I don't think it's such a bad analogy, for the correct analogy, let's imagine for a second that there was actually and inventor and developer of the game of football, would it be right for him to try to control the leagues in such a way?.
when you see a game match wether it is sport or esport you aren't there to see the players or team do their thing, i would say that a match should be owned by the players/teams but this is obviously not a consensus and there won't be any consensus on these matters any time soon. IP rights is a shady area, specially in this digital age.
There is a huge difference between sports and video games. A sport consists mostly of rules. To play basketball, baseball, or soccer all you need to enough people and some things to represent goals, bases, ect. You could play any of those sports without any of the proper equipment and get along just fine.
Compare that with Starcraft, which is much more than just a set of rules. It also has art and programming and without those you're no longer playing Starcraft. Even if you're using a volleyball in a basketball game, you're still playing basketball. That is why sports and e-sports are incomparable.
On November 14 2010 15:50 Fiel wrote: "How can Kespa consider starcraft public property? I just don't get it. It's a creation that was made with the purpose to sell and make money. That's what copyrights are for... sigh"
Because you also have to consider what KeSPA did to change public understanding of Starcraft. Their organization completely changed one of Blizzard's products that, like most other strategy games from the 90s, would have been swept under the rug by now. Their investment into the product is worth something too, isn't it? So since KeSPA has helped Blizzard indirectly, it would seem rude of Blizzard to stomp in their face about IP rights. I think it's because of KeSPA that I can still go to Wal-Mart and find Starcraft sitting on a shelf for $15. Also, remember that KeSPA is a not-for-profit organization solely dedicated to eSports. To say that KeSPA is a threat to Starcraft is totally off-base, but to say that KeSPA is a threat to international copyright is most likely accurate.
so KeSPA had something to do with the fact that i can still go find diablo 2 battle chest in wal-mart too? I mean, scbw is 12 years old, diablo 2 is younger but only by two years. maybe it just has to do with the fact that blizzard releases quality products?
if i remember correctly they played their matches on iCCup maps, and i believe that iCCup has absolutely no connection to KeSPA...
we should give the dota team IP rights over warcraft 3 because they changed the scene!
oh KeSPA is non-profit? maybe, but not their subsidiaries.
Wow thanks for this! Learned a few more interesting things, like Kespa deleting Nada's data base. Like WTF.
Also, I hate when people (or in this situation Kespa) tries to compare Starcraft to a sport. They always give unfair examples. I guess that's the purpose but I'm sure they know they are unfair comparisons.
17. KeSPA goes 'e-sports is also sports', 'do soccer players pay the soccer ball manufacturers for a match', 'SC is a public property and is accessible by anyone' etc bullcrap
It's pretty complex because of all the factors involved in each aspect, but I people understand. Basically, in soccer, the audience pays the stadium to watch, which goes towards the stadium's Owner/Creator. People pay to come to the venues to watch Starcraft, so ok sure Kespa should get some money in that respect, but like in soccer or any other sport that money goes towards the players too right? (correct if im wrong).
However, the stadium is tied with the ball and the rules of soccer, in order for it to be soccer. The stadium + ball + rules = Computer (may be even the game's engine) + Mouse + the programming that makes Starcraft.
Blizzard doesn't own the computers or the mice of course, but they own the game, or the rules and ideas that define soccer. Because of this anyone making money out of their copyrighted property, Kespa can't make money off of their property (since it's in their terms of service or whatever). When they buy starcraft, just like any DVD movie, they don't own the movie. They only own a copy of it. There are limits to using the DVD, for example (this may not be the real rule, but there are several like this) if you record a television show, you can only show it for educational purposes and only within X something days, by which then you must delete it. And of course you can't buy a DVD, show it at a school or something, and charge money for it.
Then again the laws in Korea may be different or may be those laws only apply to DVD. Anyways I probably did a bad job with comparisons too since I'm not a lawyer but meh xD. But anyways the bottom of it is, Blizzard's terms of service for SC1 probably give him full control of it, and because Kespa is using the game with those terms of service, they are breaking rules, perhaps not the law, but they are violating Blizzard's ToS.
do soccer players pay the soccer ball manufacturers for a match
isn't this actually a good argument though?
wtf is this. soccer ball does not = soccer.
This isn't starcraft players paying Blizzard to play. This is starcraft players playing Razer to use their mouses.
Soccer did not cost a company millions of dollarsand dozens of programmers to develop and millions more spent on marketing.
Any comparison between a computer game and real sporting games is just irrelevant. The electronic games industry emerged in the past 20 years, of course it'll have a different set of rules.
do soccer players pay the soccer ball manufacturers for a match
isn't this actually a good argument though?
Not in this situation, I don't think. That would be analogous to asking pay the keyboard/mouse/monitor manufacturers every time they touched their equipment for a game. Starcraft is the game itself, created by Blizzard, which would be more like paying the entrance fee to a football match held in a stadium.
I think a better argument would sit somewhere on the distinction and rights of contents generation.
That's what this is all about really. No one is arguing the intellectual property rights of Blizzards, they've made the game, they have the IP.
Its the contents that are generated by the game that is contested at the moment.
An example pro Kespa would be, if a programmer makes a program in visual studio, who would own the program? Microsoft or the programmer? In this example, it would obviously be the programmer but this is an established case with a very defined role/contract between the two party.
Gaming and gaming contents are not so simple because the industry is so young, the established contracts and roles are not clearly defined and I personally feel that it is not Blizzard's role to manage E-sports unless they have made efforts to establish a division of Blizzard E-sport or something.
Ultimately Kespa would have to back down in one way or another, Blizzard have already made arrangment in regards to EULA and partnerships and holds all the cards. An argument can be made for SCBW favouring Kespa but not SCII.