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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Lawbringer: Mailbag 2.0
by Mathew McCurley 
Mar 25th 2011 at 3:00PM
I love getting emails with questions in them! Incidentally, people also love mailbags. Right? Right? Of course you do. Also, based on my images, can you tell that I've been leveling through Grizzly Hills?
After the last two weeks of gold selling/hacking and crazy currency discussions, I found my email littered with questions that I had neglected. At the end of last month I also ran a mailbag feature, but some of these questions were so fun and provoking that I had to answer them publicly. One interesting thing about legal questions and answers is that you're obviously not getting the whole answer, because there are a million and one factors that go into questions and answers in the legal world. Rather, you're getting the beginnings of a concept that you might want to further your knowledge of. Fun times! Learning is fun! Let's learn together.
If you have a question for the column, please email me at mat@wowinsider.com, and include a subject with "Lawbringer Question" or something easily categorized/sorted like that!
Barter me gently
The first email we've got today is from Blacklance on the Kirin Tor server. He wants to know why gold just can't be made account-bound like heirloom items to stop gold farming, selling, and hacking.
Hi Mat,Thanks for the email, Blacklance. Making gold account-bound is certainly an option but not an option players would like, I would think. The purpose of gold is to be liquid, to be spent on a variety of items and easily traded. One of the purposes of liquid currency is having an ascribed value that makes it a trading medium. "Liquid," for our purposes here, just means that you can turn gold into other items through purchase or items into gold through sale.
Was just reading the latest WoW Insider Lawbringer article about Gold-Farming and it got me thinking about a discussion my friend and I had recently on the subject...
Why can't Blizzard make all Gold Account-Bound? Wouldn't that almost
single-handedly wipe out the Gold trade? It would at least stop the Level 1 Gold beggars in the Capital cities!
I'm sure this discussion must have been had before now, but I have never
seen it discussed anywhere. Are there any reasons why this cannot be done? Am I missing something?
I would love to see a column written on this subject, and to hear the
reasons why or why not this should happen.
Regards,
Blacklance - Kirin Tor
A bartering system, which would most likely replace a liquid currency system, uses the item's inherent value and the need/want from each member in the transaction. I need flasks, and you need armor. It's harder to make a piece of armor, so you give me more flasks for this one piece of armor. We come to an agreement, make the trade, and the "worth" of each item does not translate out of our single transaction, for the most part. Everything is very self-contained.
There is a reason human beings invented currency: Bartering sort of sucks. It works in small economies where people roughly have the same ins and outs, needs and wants, as it were. Larger economies, like World of Warcraft's, thrive on currency because of the mechanisms that perpetuate said economy. The auction house would be a serious mess without currency -- people would suggest a trade and you would have to go through each one until you found the right trade you would want to make. It would be an unwieldy system, and currency just makes things easier.
Sure, with currency you get the gold selling and hacking problem, which is why getting rid of currency for an already established game is a blessing and a curse. The curse, of course, is that players would now have to not only keep everything they would ever want to barter in their bags, but the entire nature of the game would have to be changed.
Gold as currency is here to stay. Fighting gold selling is about limiting the importance of gold on character progression and fighting the security loopholes, not necessarily changing the system in such profound ways.
Our next question is from Ryan, who wants to know about guild sponsorships.
Hi Mat,Thanks for this great question, Ryan. The reason gold selling is against the Terms of Use and EULA is because you are selling something for profit that is explicitly stated in the Terms that you aren't allowed to do if you want to retain access to the game. Real money transactions on that grey market are against Blizzard's rules. Illegal? We don't really know yet. Against the rules? Definitely.
I've heard recently about several guilds and arena teams that are sponsored by third-party companies. Exactly how legal is this, and to what extent are benefits legal? I know that Blizzard commonly states that buying/selling gold is against the ToS because it provides and unfair advantage, which seems reasonable; legally selling gold basically turns WoW into a contest to spend the most money. But if sponsoring companies are providing players with free, top of the line equipment, does that not offer an unfair advantage? And if the benefits include monetary compensation, to the point that players no longer need to work, that clearly creates an advantage of more play time.
I understand that these sponsorships are gained through hard work and dedication, and am no way trying to implicate that sponsorships should be illegal, but exactly how legal are they?
Thanks for your time,
Ryan
Guild sponsorships don't actually have a nexus, basis, or any kind of focal point in World of Warcraft itself. The contracts signed and the deals made are all about out-of-game representation, for the most part. Take Paragon, a guild that advertises Asus and Steelseries on its website and uses products at its events from these companies. None of that really affects WoW or Blizzard's terms, that I personally know of. When Blizzard has Paragon play the live raid at BlizzCon, there are most likely contracts in place for that, with advertisers' rights and compensation and all that. For the sponsorship stuff, though, it's not really in the game's terms.
If Blizzard is in a similar mindset with guild sponsorships as it is with machinima sponsorships (i.e. very relaxed, for the most part), then guild sponsorships are perfectly fine. An email to Blizzard, however, is always advised before doing anything with its game, just for safesies.
Our final email comes from Caboose, who wants to know a little bit about sound effects and copyrights.
Hey Mat,Thanks for the email, Caboose. Sound recordings are protected under U.S. copyright law as sound recordings. This questions opens a huge can of worms, so I'll keep it simple and address your points quickly.
So I've been trying a bunch of new games lately since even after a huge expansion like Cataclysm I find myself increasingly more bored with the game since I don't have the time to raid anymore. In my most recent endeavor, I played the Forsaken World beta today. In less than 10 minutes after entering the game, I begin to notice that some mob sounds in the game sound an awful lot like sound effects from WoW. A few minutes later, and I'm fighting some centaur in the human lands and the females have the EXACT same sound effects as female blood elves. From the "attack grunts" to the death rattle, it's the exact same sound files. The funny part was, the male centaurs use the sound effects for female orc "attack grunts" from WoW.
As I leveled to 20, I heard tons more sounds from WoW like the vanilla scourge sounds, numerous animal noises, even their mining pick sound is the exact same pitch and timing that's been plinking in my ears for 5 years now. Can any video game just use sound effects from any other game so easily? I know the company that produces Forsaken World is Korean-based, so is it just an international copyright loophole? It's hard to get away from WoW when even if the game looks completely different, if you close your eyes it still sounds like the exact same game all over again. Mostly I just wonder why Blizzard, with its seemingly infinite corporate lawyer army, would let something like this go unhindered or maybe they just hadn't gotten wind of it yet.
Thanks,
Caboose, Area 52
Sound effects are usually licensed out; you pay the copyright owner a requested fee for a license to use those sound effects as described. Sound departments can also license whole volumes of sound effects, like libraries, and those come with what rights you have attached. It's all nebulous and depends on the copyright owner.
Some sound recordings are also in the public domain. The most famous sound effect, I believe, is the Wilhelm Scream. You'll know it when you hear it.
As for sound effects and copyright in other countries? Well, they don't care, for the most part. China, especially, is copyright theft central, which is why a ton of knock-off electronics and technology comes out of factories in that area of the world. Copyright law in the United States is not always honored everywhere else in the world. So your Korean-based MMO just might be stealing WoW sounds and doesn't think that any action can really be taken against it. Again, it all depends on whether Blizzard is even interested in going after companies stealing its sound effects. It would be easier to do in the United States, however.
Thanks for the emails, guys!
This column is for entertainment only; if you need legal advice, contact a lawyer. For comments or general questions about law or for The Lawbringer, contact Mat at mat@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Lawbringer
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Sally Bowls Mar 26th 2011 5:31PM
And why do you think something has to be real to be taxed? Have you thought about this?
Just because you can't go to Walmart, hold it in your hand and see the price tag does not mean it does not have value. In the USA, the IRS gets involved in all sorts of intangible things. An example from March is that people donate tens of thousands of dollars for the right to buy Duke basketball tickets. That privilege of buying tickets results causes you to pay more taxes by reducing your deduction. BTW, donating to Duke football merely gets you committed. :-)
If a contest prize was backstage access to the Super Bowl/World Cup/Oscars, do you think the official IRS ruling would be " Its not real and has no correlation between real world currency." so no problem, there is no tax event here. I feel you seriously underestimate the reach of the IRS.
mrmojoz Mar 25th 2011 5:26PM
"...legally selling gold basically turns WoW into a contest to spend the most money."
Don't agree with this, a player with massive amounts of gold has no real advantages in PvE/PvP. Not like you can spend gold for i372 purples.
Jade Mar 26th 2011 9:29AM
Yes, of course, because no one in the history of WoW has offered gear runs, or mount runs or offered to carry people through high level dungeons for Gold.
Nope never happened.
Not once.
*cough*
Hollow Leviathan Mar 25th 2011 6:05PM
My understanding is that no one is playing wow professionally, as in, paid a living wage to play wow. I thought those people who are sponsored get, for Asus and Steelseries, for example, a motherboard and a mouse. That's not exactly a computer, and you can't eat house or clothe yourself with them, either.
rkaliski Mar 25th 2011 6:53PM
To be considered professional salary does not even have to be considered in at least one sport. You are considered a professional golfer when you give up your amateur status and play for possible prize money. No matter if you make a dime or not, you broke your cherry. An amateur can lose his status by accepting golf equipment or other prizes which have a value above a certain amount. No actual money need change hands.
I am a private pilot. If you are a my buddy and we fly to somewhere for a vacation you can offer to split expenses of gas and oil along with airport fees but I can't ask you to do so. That makes me a professional pilot AKA commercial. I can't even fly an airplane without charge to somewhere to get its' annual inspection if I would normally pay to fly that plane. You cannot exchange your skills for free hours to log without being a professional pilot.
Heck it used to be that if you were an Olympic participent you could get thrown out as a GASP, professional simply by stating you intened to turn professional.
Its always been a tough call who is professional and who isn't. Is a minor child who has the full financial backing of a well to do family a pro?
Blizzard at this time lets "pros" do what they want simply because they are useful to them. If at any point a "pro" guild does something, anything that Blizzard doesnt like for any reason they will come down on them like a ton of bricks, even though they may not be doing anything different than their pet teams.
vinniedcleaner Mar 25th 2011 7:19PM
@rkaliski
Couldn't say it better myself. The second Paragon (or any other guild/arena team) accepted anything from a sponsor, they became 'professional' players, which makes their 'world firsts' and Arena titles just hollow victories.
I'd like to see Blizzard ban sponsorships and then see how many of the leet players stick around once they can't get their new shinies.
Lorini Mar 25th 2011 8:11PM
Just to be clear, both China and Korea are parties to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which protects copyrights internationally. The degree to which they enforce this agreement may vary or even be non existent but the countries themselves recognize US copyrights.
Drakkenfyre Mar 25th 2011 8:33PM
Stock sound effects exist, but the attack/hurt sounds from the Blood Elf/Centaurs are done specifically by Blizzard, and are pretty blantant copyright violations.
Some stock sound effects I am so tired of. Cat attacking is one (unless it's your own cat, then it's fine) and bears. Bears aggro'ing is my number 1 most hated NPC sound. That sound effect is used in every single movie, TV show, or cartoon with bears.
When watching a channel like Animal Planet, you will notice alot of the animal stock sounds used.
I was mightily impressed years ago when someone noticed that one of the sound effects for Trespasser: Jurassic Park was a rare bird that was found only on one island in the middle of the ocean. The bird would have existed on the island in the game, and none are known in captivity. The island is uninhabited, the government very rarely lets people onto it, so either someone found a very rare recording of it, or someone actually went to the island to get the sound effect.
Biggles Mar 25th 2011 11:35PM
I don't know how many WoW players nowdays played Blizzard's previous epic, Diablo II. Diablo II didn't have account-bound gold - it simply had gold that was, for most intents, completely worthless at high levels.
Because gold was so devalued, trading ended up using a very rarely dropping ring, the "Stone of Jordan" - a given epic weapon or armor would be worth 5, 10, or more Stones of Jordan. Unfortunately, due to duping, this economy tended to be manipulated by cheaters, and eventually Blizzard added a "stone sink" to get rid of the extras (You had to sacrifice Stones of Jordan to summon Uber-Diablo, kinda. You can google for the details).
Point is - if Blizzard made gold bind-on-account - people would find other things to trade, flasks or such. And I suspect, based on what happened in D2, that we'd all be worse off than we are now.
-- Biggles the Historian
Drakkenfyre Mar 26th 2011 2:46AM
Every single damn time someone mentions making gold BOP, I say "Stones of Jordon, you don't know what it was like."
We would just end up settling on something else of value, and instead of "You buy gold, cheap", it would be "You buy Chaos Orb, cheap."
BTW, are you aware of the appropriateness of "Biggles the historian", since there was a movie called "Biggles: Adventures in Time" ?
Diablo Mar 25th 2011 11:43PM
On a side note, since characters can now transfer between servers, how about letting us trade and tradeskill with instance and pvp party members in addition to the (mostly unused) world map people?
Drakkenfyre Mar 26th 2011 1:03AM
Character transfers are one-way things. Trades cross-server are not.
They also intentionally stop this from happening to keep from upsetting server economies. Imagine something on one server is easy to get, while rare on another. Say you farm a crapload on one server, then get into a group with someone from that other server, and sell them those items. They go back and flood the market with them.
While this seems like a minor issue, it's actually one of the reasons why they don't allow cross-server trading, in additional to the technical problems.
Amaxe Mar 26th 2011 1:41AM
Didn't they use to allow BGs to enchant and the like in Vanilla?
I vaguely recall selling some enchants before the start of a battle back then.
Assuming this isn't merely a delusional memory on my part, it seems that such transfers are not totally impossible. Merely restricted.
Diablo Mar 26th 2011 1:23PM
On an economic note, while gold-selling for cash is not allowed under the rules, it currently is popular on the web and all the servers and factions appear to have matching gold prices at this time, indicating that allowing this would probably not affect the economic situations, and making a game-wide auction hall (possibly with or without cross-faction across all servers) may also have a price neutral or surprisingly complex and powerful effect.
Mau Mar 26th 2011 9:42AM
"As for sound effects and copyright in other countries? Well, they don't care, for the most part. China, especially, is copyright theft central, which is why a ton of knock-off electronics and technology comes out of factories in that area of the world. Copyright law in the United States is not always honored everywhere else in the world."
There's SO much wrong in this parragraph...
First of all the "knock-off electronics and technology" from China are NOT copyright violations, those things are protected with patents and industrial designs which are territorial, and it IS legal to produce and sell them in countries where the patents have not been requested.
Second, "Copyright law in the United States is not always honored everywhere else in the world" and it DOESN'T have to be! Each country has their sovereign right to establish their own legislation which may contradict or not what other countries accept. The basic similarities in country's individual laws come from international treaties and agreements that set a baseline of things that should be in common.
Yada Mar 26th 2011 3:56PM
"Copyright law in the United States is not always honored everywhere else in the world."
ROFLMAO -- Of COURSE it isn't honored everywhere else in the world -- it's a US law, and while this may come as a surprise, all countries have their own sets of laws. If you want copyright in other countries, you obviously need to do what it takes to obtain copyright in those other countries. The same principle exists for trademarks, patents, and killing the neighbor's dog who barks too much.
Come on up to Canada and we'll be happy to show you how quickly the "right to bear arms" can become the "right to go to jail."
Sally Bowls Mar 26th 2011 5:08PM
re: " limiting the importance of gold on character progression"
I'm sorry but doing this would significantly lessen the importance of professions. You could make a game with cosmetic only professions or even no professions. That is a very different game than WoW and one I would not be willing to even consider playing. Trying to limit the value of gold/professions is a horrible idea that I hope Blizzard does not embrace even slightly.
And I don't read /trade for obvious reasons and so think bartering is a horrible idea.
EVE Online's goal of getting to where virtually everything is player produced is far more interesting, but perhaps a bit too much for WoW.
Zedd Mar 29th 2011 12:17PM
Not to put down everyone discussing the BoA gold, but the first time I read the Mailbag question, I interpreted it rather differently (and perhaps incorrectly). And it spawned an interesting tangent to the original:
BoA gold, Meaning that if character X on Server A picks up 5g, Character Y on Server A also has immediate access to it (rather than mailing it)
AS WELL AS: Character Z on Server B would also have immediate access to it.
I'm not sure if this is a fantastic idea, but I thought it was interesting to discuss.
It would end up normalizing the economy across servers, being as gold would be more easily transferrable. Good or bad, I don't know.
The penalties for swapping servers would be less, being as lvl 1 toons would have access to the gold of the mains. So that could be good for altaholics.
Quality of life improvement, not having to worry about running out on low level toons, or when you need to buy mount speeds, etc.
potentially reduce the amount of activity on the in-game mail servers. (although if the BoA gold system requires a lot of server activity, this may be moot)
This of course brings us back to making BoA, truly BoA and not just Bind on Faction/Server.
Thoughts?
Brian Apr 3rd 2011 1:41PM
I don't think that's what the person who wrote the email meant, since they referenced wiping out gold selling using the gold BoA mechanism and it's not clear to me how the "shared gold pool" interpretation would do that.
Zedd Apr 3rd 2011 2:42PM
Oh I'm pretty sure that's NOT what they meant at all. I just thought it'd be an interesting discussion. I read it wrong the first time and the tangent was worth mentioning, that's all.