The story of a lawyer who played Dota2, or how Valve fooled Blizzard
One day, late in the evening, playing Dota2, I wondered why Blizzard gave the rights to create this game in favor of Valve, and most importantly - why?
Delving into the heart of the matter, I realized what unforgivable mistakes Blizzard made, and what tricky Valve managers and lawyers turned out to be.
I myself am a lawyer (I practice law in the field of IT) and have some professional expertise in the field of copyright.
')
The website of my company LAWBOOT is here: www.law-boot.com
In this article I will show you what information I collected, analyzed and summarized.
Initial data:
more than 15 years ago, Blizzard developed the WarCraft game on the basis of which the Defense of the Ancients map was created using the WarCraft World Editor tool (players called it DotA).
The map was very popular, and it was constantly evolving, and it was invented by a man with the nickname Eul, after which the source code was opened, and the development was continued by Steve Fick (also known as Guinsoo), who later transferred the map to a fan by the name IceFrog.
Detailed article is on wiki
In 2013, Valve released a game called Dota2, which is incredibly similar to the above-mentioned Defense of the Ancients.
Now, in 2015, the game Dota2 is incredibly popular, has a number of successful monetization mechanisms and a large solvent audience, is top among eSports, and the old card in WarCraft called Defense of the Ancients has lost almost all of its audience.
Question: how did Valve manage (from a legal point of view) to do this?
I began to search for the text of the agreement (or any related news) on which Valve and Blizzard agreed to transfer the rights to the product, and found that no agreement exists.
I immediately had a question: “Why has Blizzard still not won the court by filing a claim on violation of intellectual property rights? There’s so much in common between games. "
Below I have tried to describe a detailed answer:
1. The name of the game
Valve was very fortunate that before them no one had registered the right to a trademark with the name Dota, Dota2. They just took the opportunity and got a popular brand, known and used by all lovers of the Defense of Ancients card.
Blizzard tried to challenge the application for registration of a trademark, and filed a claim to the court.
The main arguments were that the map was created on the WarCraft engine, developed thanks to Blizzard, and ... they were the first creators of the DOTA brand, hence the name and trademark should belong to them.
Unfortunately for Blizzard, the court sided with Valve.
After all, even the Terms of Use WarCraft did not contain an item on which all maps created through the WarCraft World editor belong to Blizzard.
I suppose that a company like Blizzard has at least one floor of lawyers ... but apparently not so long-range and understand the IT sphere.
It is indicative that they changed their Terms only after Valve submitted an application for trademark registration, but it was too late. (which again, as a lawyer, surprised me - after all, it would not have clearly protected Blizzard)
Just like that, Valve got the popular Dota brand for its sole, inviolable use and called its new game Dota2.
2. Gameplay
Since the developer of the Defense of the Ancients card in the form in which we see now was IceFrog, Valve understood that it owns the copyright for a number of gameplay elements (with both tangible and intangible intellectual property rights).
They simply “bought IceFrog’s copyright with it,” enticing it to work for their corporation. The amount and details of the contract were not disclosed to the press.
Thus, Gabe (CEO of the Valve Corporation) got the “skeleton” of the game.
3. Names of characters, skills and artifacts
Here Valve also acted slyly, because they did not want the game to be radically different from the version of Blizzard ... and decided to "finish off" them.
Some of the names of characters, skills, artifacts in the new Dota2 were identical to the Blizzard card.
According to the norms of international copyright (including the United States) it is impossible to obtain a copyright for public, well-known names - the so-called public domain (Public domain).
The names of the characters that were in the public domain, Valve just copied from the Defense of the Ancients.
Below you will see that in the Defense of the Ancients heroes had two names, the main and the additional. Valve decided not to bother and use only one primary name.
Many of the skills they copied, since these are common phrases that are not trademarks - hence they had the right.
Examples of using “cheating” with Public Domain
Unbelievable Blizardovsky Zeus, Lord of Olympus became just Zeus . (Zeus - public domain name - Greek mythology)
A clever assassin from Warcraft Yurnero, Juggernaut became Juggernaut , and his magic ability Omnislash is duplicated in both the Valve version and the Blizzard version (Juggernaut and Omnislash - public domain names - Indian literature)
The support and healer of the old dota Witch Doctor Vol'Jin became Witch Doctor (English literature, the first mention of the term Witch Doctor was in 1718 in the book of the author with the name Francis Hutchinson. Therefore, according to the statute of limitations, the name is already in the Public Domain)
The powerful orc of Blizzard Ax company Mogul Khan became simply Ax (The word “Ax”, translated as “ax” is a well-known term, is public domain. You say that there are trademarks of “Ax” - I will answer immediately, but there are successfully registered ones, but the class trademark does not cover the game industry and does not interfere with the name of the character in the game. With the above names - similarly)
4. Visualization of characters, skills and artifacts
And then Valve showed strategic trick.
Some of the characters of Defense of the Ancients, namely their “visual shell” were the intellectual property of Blizzard, so Valve could not copy them head-on, although they clearly wanted to “soften” the user’s transition from the old dota to the new dota2 as much as possible, leaving only a minimum cardinal changes.
Such a strategy was necessary to “pull out” the maximum percentage of the audience.
What did they do?
Their designers simply simply redrawn some of the characters as close as possible, but in a new juicy and more detailed 3d format, while some remained to be characters from the Defense of the Ancients, and some found a new visual shell.
Legally, Valve had the task of not using the visual elements developed by Blizzard. After all, even a part / element of the character can not be used without the permission of the copyright holder.
Designers Valve coped with the task: the characters look different, but they are associatively similar. The user did not meet something new in Dota2, but only saw the old in a new shell. (This is my subjective opinion, designers may think differently; D)
And another picture on a slightly larger scale:
The same situation with the inventory items:
Right in the column of the old pillboxes, ssleva - of the new.
5. Voice acting
Valve developed a new voice acting for the same reasons as with visualization, because audio production is also an object of intellectual property and is protected in the same way.
By the way, the new dubbing of Valve was associatively similar to the previous version of the Blizzard card.
Voice Valve here
Voice Blizzard here
The final
From the above facts, we see that Valve has strategically and legally wisely approached cloning and simultaneously improving the old pillbox, and now using the audience of the past Blizzard company earn millions of dollars by monetizing the game without fear of legal consequences, which I wish you and my dear readers!
In turn, I urge you to cooperate with my law firm LAWBOOT Lawyers & Consultants .
I also want to appeal separately to major gaming companies such as Wargaming, Mail.ru Group, Innova, Plarium, Zeptolab, Gaijin Entertainment and others - do not make Blizzard mistakes!
As you can see, top players can also lose in a strategic and legal war.
LAWBOOT lawyers will help protect your product, as well as cunningly, legally and safely circumvent the restrictions that exist in world law.
I'll leave my email here
Delving into the heart of the matter, I realized what unforgivable mistakes Blizzard made, and what tricky Valve managers and lawyers turned out to be.
I myself am a lawyer (I practice law in the field of IT) and have some professional expertise in the field of copyright.
')
The website of my company LAWBOOT is here: www.law-boot.com
In this article I will show you what information I collected, analyzed and summarized.
Initial data:
more than 15 years ago, Blizzard developed the WarCraft game on the basis of which the Defense of the Ancients map was created using the WarCraft World Editor tool (players called it DotA).
The map was very popular, and it was constantly evolving, and it was invented by a man with the nickname Eul, after which the source code was opened, and the development was continued by Steve Fick (also known as Guinsoo), who later transferred the map to a fan by the name IceFrog.
Detailed article is on wiki
In 2013, Valve released a game called Dota2, which is incredibly similar to the above-mentioned Defense of the Ancients.
Now, in 2015, the game Dota2 is incredibly popular, has a number of successful monetization mechanisms and a large solvent audience, is top among eSports, and the old card in WarCraft called Defense of the Ancients has lost almost all of its audience.
Question: how did Valve manage (from a legal point of view) to do this?
I began to search for the text of the agreement (or any related news) on which Valve and Blizzard agreed to transfer the rights to the product, and found that no agreement exists.
I immediately had a question: “Why has Blizzard still not won the court by filing a claim on violation of intellectual property rights? There’s so much in common between games. "
Below I have tried to describe a detailed answer:
1. The name of the game
Valve was very fortunate that before them no one had registered the right to a trademark with the name Dota, Dota2. They just took the opportunity and got a popular brand, known and used by all lovers of the Defense of Ancients card.
Blizzard tried to challenge the application for registration of a trademark, and filed a claim to the court.
The main arguments were that the map was created on the WarCraft engine, developed thanks to Blizzard, and ... they were the first creators of the DOTA brand, hence the name and trademark should belong to them.
Unfortunately for Blizzard, the court sided with Valve.
After all, even the Terms of Use WarCraft did not contain an item on which all maps created through the WarCraft World editor belong to Blizzard.
I suppose that a company like Blizzard has at least one floor of lawyers ... but apparently not so long-range and understand the IT sphere.
It is indicative that they changed their Terms only after Valve submitted an application for trademark registration, but it was too late. (which again, as a lawyer, surprised me - after all, it would not have clearly protected Blizzard)
Just like that, Valve got the popular Dota brand for its sole, inviolable use and called its new game Dota2.
2. Gameplay
Since the developer of the Defense of the Ancients card in the form in which we see now was IceFrog, Valve understood that it owns the copyright for a number of gameplay elements (with both tangible and intangible intellectual property rights).
They simply “bought IceFrog’s copyright with it,” enticing it to work for their corporation. The amount and details of the contract were not disclosed to the press.
Thus, Gabe (CEO of the Valve Corporation) got the “skeleton” of the game.
3. Names of characters, skills and artifacts
Here Valve also acted slyly, because they did not want the game to be radically different from the version of Blizzard ... and decided to "finish off" them.
Some of the names of characters, skills, artifacts in the new Dota2 were identical to the Blizzard card.
According to the norms of international copyright (including the United States) it is impossible to obtain a copyright for public, well-known names - the so-called public domain (Public domain).
The names of the characters that were in the public domain, Valve just copied from the Defense of the Ancients.
Below you will see that in the Defense of the Ancients heroes had two names, the main and the additional. Valve decided not to bother and use only one primary name.
Many of the skills they copied, since these are common phrases that are not trademarks - hence they had the right.
Examples of using “cheating” with Public Domain
Unbelievable Blizardovsky Zeus, Lord of Olympus became just Zeus . (Zeus - public domain name - Greek mythology)
A clever assassin from Warcraft Yurnero, Juggernaut became Juggernaut , and his magic ability Omnislash is duplicated in both the Valve version and the Blizzard version (Juggernaut and Omnislash - public domain names - Indian literature)
The support and healer of the old dota Witch Doctor Vol'Jin became Witch Doctor (English literature, the first mention of the term Witch Doctor was in 1718 in the book of the author with the name Francis Hutchinson. Therefore, according to the statute of limitations, the name is already in the Public Domain)
The powerful orc of Blizzard Ax company Mogul Khan became simply Ax (The word “Ax”, translated as “ax” is a well-known term, is public domain. You say that there are trademarks of “Ax” - I will answer immediately, but there are successfully registered ones, but the class trademark does not cover the game industry and does not interfere with the name of the character in the game. With the above names - similarly)
4. Visualization of characters, skills and artifacts
And then Valve showed strategic trick.
Some of the characters of Defense of the Ancients, namely their “visual shell” were the intellectual property of Blizzard, so Valve could not copy them head-on, although they clearly wanted to “soften” the user’s transition from the old dota to the new dota2 as much as possible, leaving only a minimum cardinal changes.
Such a strategy was necessary to “pull out” the maximum percentage of the audience.
What did they do?
Their designers simply simply redrawn some of the characters as close as possible, but in a new juicy and more detailed 3d format, while some remained to be characters from the Defense of the Ancients, and some found a new visual shell.
Legally, Valve had the task of not using the visual elements developed by Blizzard. After all, even a part / element of the character can not be used without the permission of the copyright holder.
Designers Valve coped with the task: the characters look different, but they are associatively similar. The user did not meet something new in Dota2, but only saw the old in a new shell. (This is my subjective opinion, designers may think differently; D)
And another picture on a slightly larger scale:
The same situation with the inventory items:
Right in the column of the old pillboxes, ssleva - of the new.
5. Voice acting
Valve developed a new voice acting for the same reasons as with visualization, because audio production is also an object of intellectual property and is protected in the same way.
By the way, the new dubbing of Valve was associatively similar to the previous version of the Blizzard card.
Voice Valve here
Voice Blizzard here
The final
From the above facts, we see that Valve has strategically and legally wisely approached cloning and simultaneously improving the old pillbox, and now using the audience of the past Blizzard company earn millions of dollars by monetizing the game without fear of legal consequences, which I wish you and my dear readers!
In turn, I urge you to cooperate with my law firm LAWBOOT Lawyers & Consultants .
I also want to appeal separately to major gaming companies such as Wargaming, Mail.ru Group, Innova, Plarium, Zeptolab, Gaijin Entertainment and others - do not make Blizzard mistakes!
As you can see, top players can also lose in a strategic and legal war.
LAWBOOT lawyers will help protect your product, as well as cunningly, legally and safely circumvent the restrictions that exist in world law.
I'll leave my email here
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/295422/
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