NORTH CAROLINA JOURNAL OF LAW & TECHNOLOGY
10 NC JOLT ONLINE ED. 1 (2008)
MDY INDUSTRIES V. BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT: PREVENTING
THE USE OF SOFTWARE ROBOTS IN AN ONLINE GAME WITH
COPYRIGHT LAW
Satish Chintapalli 1
In MDY Industries v. Blizzard Entertainment, the United States
District Court of Arizona had an opportunity to clarify the concept
of ownership in software copyright law. The MDY court held that
users of Blizzard’s computer video game do not own the physical
copies of the game software and thus can only load the game
software into their computer’s memory, subject to Blizzard’s
license. Several players of Blizzard’s computer video game used
software manufactured by MDY Industries in conjunction with the
game—a use prohibited by Blizzard’s license. The MDY court
held that, by violating Blizzard’s license, these users committed
copyright infringement. MDY Industries was also found liable for
contributory copyright infringement. Although the MDY court
stated that they were applying Ninth Circuit precedent, the court
actually applied a significantly more expansive
test
for
determining ownership.
I. INTRODUCTION
The recent decision of the United States District Court of
Arizona, in MDY Industries v. Blizzard Entertainment,2 examines
whether players of Blizzard Entertainment’s (“Blizzard”) video
game, World of Warcraft (“WoW”), which use MDY Industries’
(“MDY”) software robot in conjunction with WoW, are liable to
Blizzard for copyright infringement if WoW’s license prohibits the
1 J.D. Candidate, University of North Carolina School of Law, 2010.
2 No. CV-06-2555-PHX-DGC, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53988, at *1 (D. Ariz.
July 14, 2008), and motion for permanent injunction and alternative motion to
amend the judgment denied, No. CV-06-2555-PHX-DGC, 2008 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 78432, at *1 (D. Ariz. Sept. 18, 2008), available at http://docs.justia.com
/cases/federal/district-courts/arizona/azdce/2:2006cv02555/322017/82/0.pdf.