Blizzard is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by one Brian Kopp, a 24-year-old gamer from Bronson, Fla. Since last August, Kopp has been selling copies of his self-penned book "The Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide" on Ebay with great success. It seems that Blizzard took offense to the guide's unauthorized nature, filed a complaint with Ebay, and had the auctions removed.

Kopp then filed a counter-claim, allowing him to briefly re-list the auctions, but another wave of complaints from Blizzard have now resulted in the suspension of Kopp's Ebay account. Kopp's suit against Blizzard claims that he was completely within his legal rights to create & sell the book, and that there was no copyright infringement involved.

The matter is still up in the air, but neither I, nor my lawyer friend whom I consulted, can see anything at all wrong or illegal with what Mr. Kopp has done; he's written a user's guide for a piece of software, and, as this article from CNet.com points out, this is no more a matter of illegality or copyright infringement than an author writing a book on how to use Microsoft Word; as long as you don't claim that it's an official Microsoft book, then all is well. The fact that the book was unauthorized is totally immaterial...Blizzard is just upset that they're not seeing any cash off it. I guess 55 million per month in subscriber fees ain't quite puttin' grits on the table...

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