Somehow I doubt that’s actually something enforceable.
So you’re telling me I could go ahead and write that short story I’ve been sitting on for ages, self-publish it tomorrow without filing anything with the copyright office, and it’d STILL be copyrighted to me?
I highly doubt that.
If you work for a company, contractually they gain ownership of everything you create. Likewise, if you create anything with the world editor (that means inserting a music track and clicking save), Blizzard gains the ownership contractually.
And this is why I doubt a website like Hive Workshop will ever be able to host maps or anything for Reforged. Blizzard will want the monopoly on that so they can uphold their EULA.
That is basically how my company works. They own the right to every thought in my head while at work.
Though in practice they allow employees to copyright their own work, but the company gets free use of it.
Yes that is how it works. There might be limitations to how much compensation you can get should you sue someone over it but you can even register it after someone infringes on it.
This isn’t really relevant though because you can of course also assign your copyright to someone else and that is what you agree to do in the EULA. So registered or not Blizzard will be the sole holder of that copyright if you use your short story in any Custom Game.
Yeah I wouldn’t be caught dead giving my IP to Blizzard. I’m generally a very generous guy but I don’t trust Blizzard to even credit me with creating it let alone compensate me for it.
I’m not about to create DLC for them for free.
That’s literally how the Berne Convention works. It is an international agreement between multiple international bodies. The United States simply being one of the many. Under the Berne Convention (the full name of which is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works):
The Berne Convention formally mandated several aspects of modern copyright law; it introduced the concept that a copyright exists the moment a work is “fixed”, rather than requiring registration. It also enforces a requirement that countries recognize copyrights held by the citizens of all other parties to the convention.
The minimum length for the Berne Convention is the life of the creator + 50 years.
Meaning that if you created a book at age 30, in the year 2020 (I don’t know your age, I’m just spitballing numbers) and you lived until the age of 90, the copyright for your work would not expire until the year 2130.
That sounds a little too good to be true, still. But whatever, if it exists it exists, even though this is literally the first time I’ve heard of it.
Good guess on my age though.
Super Mario Maker doesn’t have to deal with this crap…guess no one thinks they will get rich off their Mario maps.
LOL This isn’t about getting rich. This is about not trusting Blizzard to even give credit where it’s due.
Irrational fear to a situation that has never happened due to outrage of a disappointing product.
This EULA came out before reforged, people didn’t get mad until reforged.
At the forums current rate we will never see any DLC, let alone from a fan without credit.
Dude, at this point there’s NO reason NOT to have this “irrational” fear. Just because it never happened before doesn’t mean it won’t.
And considering how far Blizzard’s fallen over the past ten years, you’d have to be desperate or crazy to believe they’re somehow above that at this point.
It’s not even Blizzard anymore. It’s just Activision using Blizzard’s name.
It didn’t cover all copyright in the content of Custom Games before Reforged. Also of course people won’t be outraged until they notice the thing to be outraged about. Reforged drew attention to WC3 again.
It is interesting how Blizzard is the only one doing this. The legal team must have got in trouble for allowing DotA to slip away. Truth is it was Blizzard’s arrogance that led to the MOBA genre going elsewhere. IceFrog met and chatted with Blizzard employees long before he helped create Heroes of Newerth, and then went onto join Valve.
Blizzard had plenty of time to pay attention to Warcraft III DotA metrics and make a decision, but they are always so arrogant in their dealings with gamers. If you play their games passionately, on a professional level you lose 100 points. You have to play Blizzard games extremely casually and not know the name of the characters to be respected by the top brass.
The exact wording people don’t like was at minimum live in October. WCIII didn’t have a bad release…the number of people who cared about the EULA would be near 0.
Well that is a hypothetical that we can never test. There is no taking this one back and Blizzard is unlikely to make a game like this again. Let alone a good one.
I mean, Bethesda also claims the right to use modded content for their own stuff, but for them it’s a non-exclusive right, which means the original creator is free to do whatever else they want with their content.
Blizzard is just greedy and wants to own everything. Like Disney.
I’d agree, but it did take 4 months before the internet decided to rage about it.
I think it just took four months for the Internet to even notice it. The average person is NOT going to sit through all that legal guff just to play the game they bought.
Did someone mention it in that time and was it ignored? Maybe if you can find that thread there would be a point to be made. Doesn’t change the current situation at all though. Making or using anything custom in WC3 is stupid now as you give your copyright away completely. This getting less attention in some other scenario doesn’t change that.