Another day, another Blizzard lawsuit – this one lodged against the Chinese purveyor of Glorious Saga, a mobile/browser title from Joyfun/Sina Games that pretty much steals shamelessly from World of Warcraft. Check this out.
Defendants did not just copy a few discrete elements from Blizzard’s Warcraft games; they created a game whose content is almost entirely copied from the Warcraft games and related products. Every character in the Infringing Game was copied from a character from the Warcraft games, and many even bear the names of popular characters from the Warcraft games such as “Jaina Proudmoore,” “Gul’dan,” and “Malfurion.” Every monster, creature, animal and vehicle in the Infringing Game was copied from the Warcraft Games. Weapons, amulets, and other objects were taken straight from the Warcraft games, without pretense. Audio cues and sound effects from the Warcraft games were reproduced for the Infringing Game. Defendants even created an icon for their game that plainly is intended to look like the cover of Blizzard’s most recent World of Warcraft expansion, Battle for Azeroth.
I feel the exasperation in this complaint and mirror every time I file a takedown claim – I’m always just amazed that thieves would go to all the trouble of stealing our stuff but not bother to change logos and references to MassivelyOP. “Brazen” indeed. And also foolish, given Blizzard’s long (long!) history of suing copyright thieves.
Anyhow, Blizzard’s lawyers are asking the US District Court in Central California to put the kibosh on the infringing material and award attorneys’ fees and damages of “$150,000 for each copyright infringed.”
Wanna lose yourself in some old law stories? Here’s a bunch of the ones we’ve covered in the last few years involving Blizzard specifically.
