The Lawbringer: Paying for addons and the spirit of the TOS

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

9-30-2011 @ 11:24PM

DarkWalker said...

""" "Modify the World of Warcraft experience" is an intentionally vague phrase allowing the Terms to cover a greater spectrum of issues that crop up."""

This is a point where I love a few of my country's laws. (Brazil)

One of the interesting tidbits is that, in any boilerplate contract, vague or ambiguous parts are interpreted in the way that most benefits the part that didn't get to write the contract. Which makes intentionally vague or ambiguous parts of those contract mostly useless - if whoever Blizzard was going after could provide any potentially plausible definition to "World of Warcraft Experience" that left out what they are doing, that part of the TOS wouldn't hamper them at all.

If the company intends to eventually enforce the TOS/EULA here, just translating the US version of the contracts - like Blizzard actually did - is a death trap :) Even more when they do silly errors such as translating "disrupt the servers" as "destroy the servers" :)

10-01-2011 @ 12:00AM

krisiteenie56 said...

The only thing is you are subject to this TOS because you agreed to follow it when you installed your game. The rules still apply to you.

10-01-2011 @ 1:03AM

DarkWalker said...

@krisiteenie56

Currently, for WoW, it's one huge can of worms. I'm not even sure how to start to look at it.

There is no Brazilian version of WoW (yet), so it's true I agreed to the US version of the TOS. But Blizzard has a local branch, so I guess any legal dealing between me, as an user, and Blizzard would forcibly be done through the local branch - which might force some local laws to be applied to the contracts, though I'm not absolutely sure. Also, unless Blizzard sues me here, using local laws, they can't actually enforce any ruling anyway unless I either go to the US, or keep property in the US.

In fact, by at the same time having a Brazilian branch, and accepting Brazilian players in the US and Europe versions of WoW - as well as providing local user support for WoW-related problems, in the local language, thus proving they are using local resources to deal with local users - Blizzard might have created a situation where they are bound by local law in their dealings with local players, but don't have an enforceable TOS or EULA, since those are presented to local users in English, instead of the local language. It's another possibility, though again I'm not sure.

To complicate things further, the Battle.net TOS do have a Brazilian version. Quite badly done, BTW - the kind of errors on it almost feel like someone used machine translation on the English version of the TOS, and didn't run it through a native speaker, much less a local lawyer, to see if there was any problem.

As soon as WoW officially launches here, though, it will be simpler: Brazilian players will be bound to the Brazilian version of the TOS and EULA, though obviously the law takes precedence over the contracts.

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