Earlier, this blog discussed the controversial Autodesk v. Vernor decision recently issued by a district court in Seattle, Washington.  Now, shortly after the Vernor decision, another federal district court declined to follow the reasoning in Vernor, and instead treated the software transaction as a license, not a sale.  The decision in that case, Blizzard v. MDY, was issued on July 14th. Judge David Campbell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona ruled that MDY Industries and its founder Michael Donnelly were contributorily and vicariously liable for infringing the copyrights of Blizzard Entertainment and Vivendi Games, Inc. (hereafter referred to as “Blizzard”). MDY created a software program called WowGlider (hereafter referred to as “Glider”) to play Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (“WoW”) video game for WoW users while the user is away from his computer. Users liked the Glider program because it allowed them to accumulate points and, in essence, make their game characters stronger without actually having to play the game. There were several important issues at stake in the case, but perhaps the most significant to software publishers and users was whether the court would give the software license its effect as a license, rather than treating users as the “owners” of their software as the Vernor court did.

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