Advanced Copyright Law on the Internet

argument as insufficient, noting that Perfect 10 had pled no facts suggesting that the defendants
had promoted their payment system as a means to infringe, nor had they promoted the purchase
of specific infringing goods. Accordingly, the facts as pled evidenced no clear expression of a
specific intent to foster infringement, and thus there could be no liability for inducement.^2032

The court’s rulings with respect to vicarious liability are set forth in Section III.C.3.(g)
below.

(h) Parker v. Google

In Parker v. Google,^2033 pro se plaintiff Gordon Parker was the owner of copyright in an
e-book titled “29 Reasons Not To Be A Nice Guy.” He posted Reason # 6 on USENET. Parker
asserted that Google’s automatic archiving of this USENET content made Google contributorily
liable for copyright infringement because it facilitated users to make unauthorized distributions
and copies of his copyrighted material through the “author search” feature on Google’s web site.
The district court rejected this argument for two reasons. First, Parker failed to allege
infringement of a specific copyrighted work in his claim for contributory infringement. And
second, he had failed to allege that Google had requisite knowledge of a third party’s infringing
activity.^2034 On appeal, the Third Circuit affirmed in an unpublished opinion on the ground that
Parker had failed to allege that Google had the requisite knowledge of a third party’s infringing
activity.^2035

(i) MDY Industries v. Blizzard Entertainment

In MDY Industries v. Blizzard Entertainment,^2036 the defendant distributed bot software
called “Glider” that was able to play Blizzard Entertainment’s multiplayer online role-playing
game known as World of Warcraft (WoW) for its owner while the owner was away from his or
her computer, thereby enabling the owner to advance more quickly within WoW than would
otherwise be possible. Glider also enabled its user to acquire an inordinate number of game
assets, with some users even selling those assets for money in online auction sites. Both the use
of bot software to play WoW and the resale of game assets were prohibited by the Terms of Use
(TOU) that governed the play of WoW, together with an End User License Agreement (EULA).
The EULA and TOU were displayed on a player’s computer screen when the game client
software was loaded and the player sought online access to Blizzard’s game servers. Players
were required to agree to the terms of the EULA and TOU before proceeding to play the game.
Blizzard alleged that users of WoW were licensees who were permitted to copy the copyrighted
game client software only in conformance with the EULA and TOU, and that when users
launched WoW using Glider, they exceeded the license in the EULA and TOU and created

(^2032) Id. at 800-02.
(^2033) 422 F. Supp. 2d 492 (E.D. Pa. 2006), aff’d, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 16370 (9th Cir. July 10, 2007).
(^2034) Id. at 498-99.
(^2035) Parker v. Google, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 16370 at *9 (3d Cir. July 10, 2007).
(^2036) 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53988 (D. Ariz. July 14, 2008).