WoW DoS attack?
p2p news / p2pnet: World of Warcraft is experiencing lengthy downtime and is blaming its service provider, AT&T, for the outages, says Netcraft.
Interesting.
Could there be a lot more to it than ISP problems, do you think?
Florida’s Brian Kopp was selling a WoW guide playing “World of Warcraft” on eBay. Until Blizzard Entertainment and its owners, Vivendi Universal Games, told eBay to pull the action.
But there’s no reason Kopp shouldn’t be able to auction the guide, “because it does not infringe upon the video game maker`s copyright, trademark or other rights,” says Public Citizen in a lawsuit.
Blizzard invoked the the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), claiming that the guide violated its copyright in the game.
The Public Citizen suit also wants to stop Blizzard, Vivendi Universal Games Inc. of Los Angeles, and the Washington, DC-based Entertainment Software Association (ESA) from, “further interfering with the sale of the guide, and to recover damages for lost sales”.
Blizzard and its parent also have threatened to sue Kopp for copyright infringement if he sells the guide at all, even on his personal Web site.
“If the companies` interpretation of their copyright were allowed to prevail, it would threaten the publication of future how-to guides about any subject and a wide variety of other speech that merely comments on a copyrighted work,” says Public Citizen.
Kopp’s The Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide has has tips on how to play, and he started selling it on eBay on August last year. But it doesn’t contain copyrighted text or storyline from the video game, states Public Citizen`s lawsuit, adding:
“Kopp includes disclaimers in the guide stating that it was not an official guide and clearly noting that he was not affiliated with Blizzard Entertainment, the developer and publisher of ‘World of Warcraft’.”
eBay, of course, infamous for defeding the rights of potential and actual Big Name advertisers, ignoring those of the small sellers who made it rich, terminated auctions for the guide.
Blizzard was recently forced to apologise for threatening to expel Warcraft player Sara Andrews, with a Level 60 mage called Shimmre on the Shadow Moon server, for advertising her gay-friendly guild.
Now on the game’s downtime, Netcraft has senior game master Epifanio, stating on the WoW forums:
“We’d like to make all players aware that at this time our internet service provider is experiencing significant complications, and as a result the playability on a large portion of realms has been adversely affected. Symptoms include but are not limited to lag, random disconnections and slow authentication. Our network technicians are doing everything in their power to work with our ISP so that this issue may be resolved as swiftly as possible.”
WoW is hosted by AT&T, “which houses servers for the game at data centers in Los Angeles and Redwood City, Calif., and Ashburn, Va,” says Netcraft.
It’s not clear why “complications” at a third-party provider would be followed by server maintenance, observes Netcraft.
“While there has been no mention or indication of any malicious activity, there is a precedent for such attacks. Last year a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) attack targeted Final Fantasy XI, another large virtual world.”
(Thanks again, Phil)
Also See:
Netcraft – Widespread Outages for World of Warcraft, March 25, 2006
no reason – ‘Warcraft’ maker sued for blocking sales of unofficial guide, March 25, 2006
Public Citizen – Software Company Wrongfully Interfered with Sale of Guide to Popular Video Game on eBay, May 24, 2005
March 26th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
If I buy a Craftman’s electric screw driver, I can make an educational video of how to use that kind of tool, I can sell my video, and Craftman Corp. isn’t going to sue me for it, as a matter of fact complimentary products tend to increase sales of the main product.
Why should the WoW situation be any different? It should not be.
Now, I’ve always thought of this “all rights reserved” thing as being very stupid. But if you really must prevent others from piggyback riding on your ideas, do it the smart way. When you release a game, make sure the game package includes a decent “How To Guide”, so that even if other campanies offer their own, consumers won’t need to buy a separete guide, because they already got it from the game developers.
If I make a video of me playing WoW with the intention of selling such a video, but I place the camera very far back on the room, to the point nothing on the screen is recognizable, Blizzard/Vivendi would probably not care.
Now, let’s say I make several videos, but for each video, I bring the camera 5 feet closer to the screen and me, when does it become copyright infringement?
When we buy something, we own it, and we have the right to show others how to use such things, whether for money or for free. This whole Copyright thing going on, for the last couple of years, whether it’s movies, music, or games, or Lyrics (Lyrics for God’s sake) is really getting out of control.
I am not going to tell you to willingly infringe, but with things as they stand, I would not feel guilty at all. Just make sure you vote with your wallet.
March 27th, 2006 at 5:35 am
heh, US companies love invoking the DMCA, it appears to be their holy grail of lock in.