For the first part, my 1.26 works fine…literally can’t update, if you click multiplayer it doesn’t actually do anything. For EULA if your only making maps for personal use Blizzard would never have access to then to even claim ownership.
What about using them to make machinima?
And any version from before Patch 1.29 is a no go. I don’t want to lose the new team colors 1.29 added.
1.29 I have not figured out how to get to yet without using blizzards new launcher. Which I assume would tie you to newest EULA (though offline personal use, no one knows what you make anyway).
I suppose the EULA can apply even with old versions if you already agreed to it in Reforged. Also I’m not sure if it matters too much if it applies to you or not. You would need to argue that in court and it is prohibitively expensive to do. Blizzard only needs a reason to claim that they own your copyright to win, and your creation being connected to WC3 is that reason.
So… essentially… yes I should just give up on Warcraft 3, or at least making the content I wanted to make.
Thanks. Glad to know I’m wasting my time.
At least there’s still Warcraft 1 and 2… thanks, GOG.
That is not true and is a total disregard of what’s actually been reported.
First, EULAs don’t make rulings. They aren’t legal documents and they have no power to overrule law. EULAs have no power to take away a company’s property and give it to whatever company wrote the EULA.
Valve owns the trademarks for Dota and Defence of the Ancients. Blizzard doesn’t own DOTA, but is granted a right for their fans to use the name to create non-commercial DOTA content in Blizzard games. “Non-commercial” being the key qualifier to Blizzard’s right to continue using the DOTA name.
“Non-commercial” means that Blizzard is, by law, not allowed to use the DOTA name for any purpose that would serve their financial gain.
“Commercial” means ‘for commerce’.
Commerce is “an interchange of goods or commodities”, " including not only the purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities, but also the instrumentalities and agencies by which it is promoted and the means and appliances by which it is carried on".
If Blizzard were to advertise DOTA for their game platforms, it would be promoting “the means and appliances by which” Blizzard’s commerce “is carried on”. Therefore, Blizzard is not allowed to advertise DOTA, which Blizzard does not own, for their game platforms.
xhttps://www.dictionary.com/browse/commerce
xhttps://thelawdictionary.org/commerce/
The right granted to Blizzard is only for their fans to keep making non-commercial (AKA free and non-monetized) DOTA content as they were doing before Valve bought and became the owner of DOTA and its trademarks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickwrap#Legal_consequences_in_the_United_States
Still, in the cases that have challenged their validity, the terms of the contract have usually been upheld
Why risk it…usually been upheld, isn’t remotely close to saying ’ rarely been upheld.’
The judge won’t throw it out of court, you will be legally obligated to defend yourself regardless of what has been publicly stated; the agreement is between you and Blizzard.
Yes you can probably get away with using DotA in a game, Blizzard can still make a copyright claim, you agreed to the EULA not Valve or anyone else. Blizzard are within their legal rights to assume you own DotA, after all there is nothing stopping you from buying Dota from Valve to make WC3 custom games so you can give it to Blizzard via an EULA agreement.
Keep in mind that the new Blizzard EULA claiming custom maps and game modes belong to Blizzard has as much legal weight as the one from 2015 that claimed any “new content” made in their editor belongs to Blizzard. DOTA was still sold to Valve, who now own it. Blizzard took Valve to court over it, and lost (though Valve allowed Blizzard fans to continue making DOTA content in Warcraft III). So, Blizzard’s EULA claim of user-created content becoming Blizzard property counted for nothing in the eyes of the law.
Take that fact and apply it to Blizzard’s current claim of ownership over user-created content in their games.
EULAs aren’t laws. They never have been. And you can see that for yourself in this matter over the fact that Valve now owns Dota and may use it commercially, while Blizzard isn’t allowed to use the name in any way that would commercially benefit them.
Assuming that the End User Licence Agreement complies with the usual elements of contract formation (I think we can safely assume Blizzard’s does), then contrary to what you said, the EULA will be enforceable unless the party seeking to prove that the EULA is unenforceable can establish that it is illegal, whether at statute law or at common law.
If the EULA is legal, specific clauses of it may however not be enforceable if they are prohibited by statute law or the common law. It appears that the clause you take issue with one of those. A party has to contest Blizzard in a local court and win before custom game creators in that city can claim exception from contested clauses.
The examples of click-wrap agreement cases on that page actually appear to not be EULAs, but are ToS, which are a different matter:
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“upholding forum-selection clause”
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“granting preliminary injunction for alleged breach of contract for violating the terms of service by using a Hotmail account to send spam or pornography”
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“held a forum selection clause in an online membership agreement was consented to when the user clicked the “I agree” symbol of the agreement in order to proceed with registration”
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“granted summary judgment on the students’ complaint in favor of iParadigms/Turnitin, because they had accepted the click-wrap agreement on the Turnitin website”
.
You have to agree to the terms of a business to use what is theirs. You don’t have to agree to the terms of another business to use what is yours. That’s the difference between a ToS and an EULA: A ToS is agreeing to terms to use what is somebody else’s, and therefore are binding; An EULA is claims of terms to use what is yours, and therefore is not binding.
You don’t have to agree to anything of Valve’s to validate the fact that Valve own Dota. Valve’s ownership over Dota is not conditioned on whether you accept their ToS or EULA, it’s merely legal reality.
The only terms of EULAs that can be upheld are those that don’t violate actual laws. When a company unilaterally claims that whatever you create belongs to them, when the law says that whatever you create is your IP, the company’s claim can safely be disregarded. And everyone can see that Blizzard’s claim to own DOTA because it was created in the Warcraft 3 tools and engine was rejected by a court of law and that Valve is now in-fact who owns DOTA.
But Blizzard did not take Valve to court over the game DOTA 2, they took them to court over the name DOTA. They argued that the name falls under Blizzards trademarks and then came to a settlement.
They claimed they owned an acronym of a map name…not a game type which is what confuses people. And why DOTA never stopped being played on WC3. Also they won enough the game isn’t Defense or the Ancients 2, it’s DOTA2.
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If Blizzard didn’t plan to enforce it, if they didn’t think they could win - they wouldn’t put it in there. It has the potential to scare talent away, why risk doing that?
The fact is that Blizzard wanted to exploit the state of there being no precedent in digital matters at the time to create a precedent. Blizzard did plan to enforce it, and they tried to by taking Valve to court over DOTA. And Blizzard lost. The fact that Blizzard lost means that Blizzard’s claim has already been tested in a court of law and found to be unenforceable.
They settled out of court.
DOTA 2 was arguably trademark infringement of “Defense or the Ancients”, does no one ever wonder why League of Legends didn’t get sued?
(Taylor Swift also tried to copyright “This sick beat”…you don’t always win even if you try. Claiming trademark of an acronym apparently wasn’t worth going all the way for)
Actually, why DOTA didn’t stop being played in WC3 is because a part of the settlement was that Blizzard fans would be allowed non-commercial usage of the name. That was likely offered by Valve for the sake of the fans who play DOTA in W3, and not for Blizzard. Blizzard is not allowed to use the DOTA name for any commercial purpose.
Blizzard wasn’t found to own any part of the DOTA name. If they did own the DOTA name, they could use it any way they like, including commercially. But they can’t.
Valve own the “Defence of the Ancients” name. See them say it right on their website:
xhttps://store.steampowered.com/legal
“Dota, the Dota 2 logo, and Defense of the Ancients are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation”
So they did. And they settled in a way that meant Valve had full ownership over the brand and all its forms, while Blizzard received a license so that their fans could keep playing fan-made DOTA content in W3.
Blizzard conceded they have no legal claim to DOTA.
Full ownership of a name though. Not a game genre that people seem to think you can copyright.
It’s like Riot suing Riot Squad.
I don’t think a game mode can be copyrighted. Only the name, the brand, the characters, the content that’s specific to that brand-name, is owned by someone.
You could make your own clone of DOTA, with unique characters, visuals, and music, and it would be your property.
People seem to believe Blizzard attempted to sue to stop the creation of DOTA 2 and claiming ownership of “the game”, which is a very different issue than a lawsuit over a name.
Even the new EULA wouldn’t stop DOTA 2.