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United States238 Posts
Source: http://www.playxp.com/sc2/news/view.php?article_id=2719561
GomTV, the domestic e-sports / broadcasting partner to Blizzard Entertainment, has announced that they are relinquishing their exclusive tournament operation / broadcasting rights to StarCraft: Brood War back to Blizzard Entertainment.
This decision is seen as a way to smooth over the current courtroom issues regarding IP rights negotiation revolving around StarCraft tournament operation as well as its broadcasting. There is also the issue of inability to find a compromise between GomTV and the existing game broadcasting companies. As a result, GomTV decided to allow the original IP rights holder to decide for themselves what to do with the rights issue.
GomTV's representative, Bae In-Sik, has announced this decision to Blizzard Entertainment's CEO, Mike Morhaime, and he has accepted this quickly -- leading up to a fast announcement.
Now, all IP rights related lawsuits will be processed and dealt by Blizzard Entertainment alone. In addition, all licensing deals relating to StarCraft in South Korea will be dealt directly with Blizzard Entertainment.
The tournament/broadcasting rights to StarCraft II, WarCraft III, and World of WarCraft still remains with GomTV.
GomTV's Bae In-Sik said, "We tried our best to get the IP rights of Blizzard games acknowledged since last year, but with lawsuits and other problems, we could not resolve this problem. Therefore, with the full understandings from Blizzard, we have decided to return our exclusive rights to StarCraft: Brood War. GomTV will now only focus on GSL, and we hope that both StarCraft leagues and GSL will be very successful."
Blizzard Entertainment's CEO, Mike Morhaime stated, "We respect GomTV's decision, and we are thankful for all the effort GomTV put into growing e-sports. We will continue to work with GomTV to support their effort with GSL."
On March 31 2011 11:23 Milkis wrote:Obvious move. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=202467"Furthermore they pointed out that despite Blizzard giving exclusive rights to Gretech, Blizzard has both sued the broadcasting stations while also interfered with the negotiations and claimed that this was an abuse of their rights. OGN/MBC's lawyer questioned if Gretech did have an exclusive right to the game and ordered that only Gretech or Blizzard (and not both) be present in the courtroom and negotiations in the future."
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So does this mean anything other than which legal team appears in the courtroom? Or what happens to the ongoing case?
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I bet Gom has their hands full with SC2. The only way they would give up such lucrative rights is if they weren't making any money of it, or they found a better place to invest.
Of course, I'm not really familiar with these issues at all, but if I was running Gom that's what I'd be thinking.
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Not like Gom has any plans to do anything with those "exclusive rights", just another pawn on Blizzard's chess board.
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ALLEYCAT BLUES49479 Posts
Basically this means that gom is no longer the bad guys against BW and just Blizzard.
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It means no more middle man in the blizzard OGN/MBC lawsuit. It simplifies the court case a little bit.
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Is this good news? I can't really understand.
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ALLEYCAT BLUES49479 Posts
And also if blizzard goes down in this lawsuit gom won't be affected at all.
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On March 31 2011 11:08 BLinD-RawR wrote:
Basically this means that gom is no longer the bad guys against BW and just Blizzard.
I guess from a PR standpoint, being embroiled in this didn't look that great for the main tournament organizer for SC2. I don't think it should change anything for us/BW fans though since it's not like Gretech was functioning as much more than an outpost for Blizzard in this issue, as far as I can tell.
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I'm viewing it as meaning one of two things:
A) Gom didn't want to touch this with a ten-foot-pole. This would be seen in there comment "we hope that both starcraft leagues.... very successful" I would expect Blizzard to be backing off Gom as a partner if this is the case, as they[Gom] feel they will only be spending money legally while making themselves look bad with the e-sports scene and not getting anything back in return financially out of this.
B) Blizzard feel Gom have been doing an inadequate job representing them legally, and want to put their own say on the matter. I hope this is not the case, because it would mean Blizzard will be trying to come down hard on KeSPA/MBC/OGN.
I am leaning towards A, to be honest, but knowing Blizzard I wouldn't be surprised if it was B. They might want to bring the smackdown. Though I feel like they don't want to be associated with this anymore, and wish they hadn't taken the venture at all, they definitely don't enjoy people making more money off of their game than they did.
Different countries have different legal systems, and it is hard for a foreign entity to win a court case in another country.
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On March 31 2011 11:09 etheovermind wrote:
Is this good news? I can't really understand.
Its neither. GOM isn't going to play proxy in the negotiations for Blizzard's demands anymore is all. This shouldn't affect the lawsuits in progress. All this does for GOM is help their PR in korea a bit, since they are no longer the BW opposition that Blizzard was hiding behind.
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On March 31 2011 11:10 BLinD-RawR wrote:
And also if blizzard goes down in this lawsuit gom won't be affected at all.
Without Gom, is there a higher chance that Blizzard may go down? or is it just the same as before?
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On March 31 2011 11:08 BLinD-RawR wrote:
Basically this means that gom is no longer the bad guys against BW and just Blizzard.
YAY! Cookie and ice cream party!
Good news... if if was last summer.
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On March 31 2011 11:09 etheovermind wrote:
Is this good news? I can't really understand.
Seems to be relatively neutral news.
It should simplify the court case now that there isn't anyone else in Korea holding the BW rights other than Blizzard itself.
GOM wasn't really doing anything with the BW rights ATM, and it seems that the lawsuit put them in a relatively precarious position considering that they were the sole holders of some very sought-after IP rights.
On the other hand, this means that GOM can't really do anything about BW streams now that they don't own the rights to the game anymore. Perhaps Grobyc's ordeal will now only be an isolated anomaly.
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ALLEYCAT BLUES49479 Posts
No it's still the same and a lawsuit is not Agamemnon of chance.:p
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On March 31 2011 11:12 NicksonReyes wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2011 11:10 BLinD-RawR wrote:
And also if blizzard goes down in this lawsuit gom won't be affected at all. Without Gom, is there a higher chance that Blizzard may go down? or is it just the same as before?
I don't see why it would change anything about the outcome of the case excepting weird situations like Korean court corruption leading to Korean company favoritism, but if that was possible before(I don't really know, please understand that this is a hypothetical and not something I'm suggesting is actually happening or will happen) it's only just as possible now.
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On March 31 2011 11:12 NicksonReyes wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2011 11:10 BLinD-RawR wrote:
And also if blizzard goes down in this lawsuit gom won't be affected at all. Without Gom, is there a higher chance that Blizzard may go down? or is it just the same as before?
Stays the same, blizzard was always the force behind this whole mess, gom just
acted as a middleman.
And they have enough, because they get most of the shit out of this.
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On March 31 2011 11:14 eviltomahawk wrote:
On the other hand, this means that GOM can't really do anything about BW streams now that they don't own the rights to the game anymore. Perhaps Grobyc's ordeal will now only be an isolated anomaly.
If you believe the post they made and the lack of further action, it's not like they intended to take down any more anyway.
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On March 31 2011 11:14 eviltomahawk wrote:
On the other hand, this means that GOM can't really do anything about BW streams now that they don't own the rights to the game anymore. Perhaps Grobyc's ordeal will now only be an isolated anomaly.
I thought according to them it was about streaming GSL (and yes, I saw the alleged picture).
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GOM is owned by CJ which has a lot of money in BW. Not surprised this happened eventually.
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EPT
