Licensing our code.

[tommerbob]

This is why everyone who has commentated on this thread has missed the point by a great margin.

Which is? How to licence is your code?

 

[Miz]

tl;dr after the first few points, but the user EULA is usually full of crap i.e. it violates local/federal laws in lots of places, thus even though it says stuff, when they actually try to enforce it they will run into problems.

If you read the EULA, it says that it doesn't matter on your local government's laws if you are outside of the United States. That your contract/EULA follows Californian Government Laws which Blizzard HQ is located. Omnipotent Activison Blizzard has its bases covered. Enforcement however like you said can be harder to do but legally it doesn't matter where you are located. Yet, most of the time non-bootlegged versions of SC2 are sold to places they know they 1) have a market and 2) can enforce this in some way.

E. Location.
If you are a resident of the United States, any arbitration will take place at any reasonable location convenient for you. For residents outside the United States, any arbitration shall be initiated in the County of Los Angeles, State of California, United States of America. Any Dispute not subject to arbitration (other than claims proceeding in any small claims court), or where no election to arbitrate has been made, shall be decided by a court of competent jurisdiction within the County of Los Angeles, State of California, United States of America, and you and Blizzard agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of that court.

Though once again this is getting into legal analysis which I am no professional in.

 

[Samael88]

For residents outside the United States, any arbitration shall be initiated in the County of Los Angeles, State of California, United States of America.

They have their bases covered no matter where a dispute occurs because of that part you quoted there Miz.
If there is a legal dispute it will be forced to be settled in the county where they have their headquarters and that will cover all disputes no matter what the claim is. It is not like Blizzard is a newly started company, their lawyers have probably checked if it is covered by most laws, the are a global company damn it.

 

[Doomhammer]

@ Doomhammer. I agree with you, but that's mostly just semantics if you ask me.

No. 1 means licencing for commercial purpose, which I'm totally fine with, and surely many users, especially if they map for fun and not for financial interest
No. 2 means total control over user-created IP, which is the whole reason of this dilemma

The whole point of that part of the EULA is so that 3rd party people (like us) will not make profit off a tool if and when that profit legitimately belongs to Blizzard.

I can't quite see your reasoning of legitimacy. Build a house with a box of tools - would the guy who sold the tools in your sense legitimately own the house? Why should he now own all the material plus all the hard work of the other person who built the house?
With Blizzard and mapmakers it's the same thing. The EULA reaches far beyond a protective purpose. It's actually made to aggressively absorb IP, which in my understanding cannot be legal as such.

 

[tooltiperror]

Your analogy is completely incorrect. Blizzard is a neighborhood. Starcraft II is a house, so is Warcraft III. You can use the world editors to make furniture and rooms within those houses, but no matter how different and unique your room is, no matter how much work you put into it, it's still Blizzard's house.

 

[Doomhammer]

Your analogy is completely incorrect. Blizzard is a neighborhood. Starcraft II is a house, so is Warcraft III. You can use the world editors to make furniture and rooms within those houses, but no matter how different and unique your room is, no matter how much work you put into it, it's still Blizzard's house.

I'll have this as a finishing thought before the whole litany is repeated over and over again.

And don't feed the IP kraken unless you don't mind feeding the IP kraken.

 

[Sevion]

AGREE THAT YOU WILL EXECUTE FUTURE ASSIGNMENTS PROMPTLY UPON RECEIVING SUCH A REQUEST FROM BLIZZARD

Does this mean that if we create something in Galaxy Editor, they have the right to force us to continue making more stuff with their tools?

Quote from:

A. Map Content.
You understand that the content required to create or modify STARCRAFT® II Modified Maps (as defined below) is included in the STARCRAFT® II game client, and that all such content is owned by Blizzard and governed by this Agreement. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT ALL MAPS, LEVELS AND OTHER CONTENT CREATED OR MODIFIED USING THE MAP EDITOR (COLLECTIVELY, “MODIFIED MAPS”) ARE AND SHALL REMAIN THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE PROPERTY OF BLIZZARD. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, YOU HEREBY ASSIGN TO BLIZZARD ALL OF YOUR RIGHTS, TITLE AND INTEREST IN AND TO ALL MODIFIED MAPS, AND AGREE THAT YOU WILL EXECUTE FUTURE ASSIGNMENTS PROMPTLY UPON RECEIVING SUCH A REQUEST FROM BLIZZARD.

 

[Doomhammer]

ASSIGNMENTS in this context refers to the previously mentioned ASSIGN[ing] of [..] RIGHTS, i.e. ALL OF YOUR RIGHTS as author or creator.

Note: It does not say that Blizzard would hire you into its creative department (would be great though ), or force you to make more maps (without payment, without mercy, the rest of your life in pity until the end of your days ).

It simply reinforces that any future work created under the terms of agreement using their map editor will belong to Blizzard in the same way as previously created content. REQUEST[ing] [...] FUTURE ASSIGNMENTS obviously refers to the case of refusal and/or contravention on the part of the mapmaker who agreed to the end user license agreement in the first place. Thus the legal cases of JerseyFoo's original post "what if I license and copyright my code?", and "what if I get a lawyer myself to further protect my copyright and ownership?" are explicitly covered.