My Licensing Agreement with Blizzard Entertainment

In this blog post I mentioned that I entered into a licensing agreement with Blizzard Entertainment for my recent article for the March 2007 issue of Memory Makers. I also mentioned I would leave that story for another post.  Consider this "another post".  ;)

A little background -- I have mentioned what Geeks certain members of my family are.  One of their favorite geeky pastimes is playing World of Warcraft.  To document this part of our life together, and the relationship between my husband and son, I created a layout titled, "Geek Speak".  The journaling contains an overheard conversation between my husband and son:

James: What level is your Tauren Shaman?
David: Level 60
James: Awesome!
David: ...Yeah, but he sucks at PVP, so I'm trying to level my Mage and Warrior.
James: Which do you like better?
David: A high level Mage would be great for AOE, and sheeping is awesome.  But I stinkin' hate clothwearers.  Tanking as my Warrior rocks.
James: But for PVP, Rogues are the best because of DPS.  They're über.

On my layout, I created a border using some screenshots from the WoW website.

When I started working on the "Gotcha" article for MM, I knew this layout would be perfect, because it documents one of my family's passions, as well as the relationship between my husband and son.  So I submitted the "Geek Speak" layout along with two others, with my article.

My editor at MM expressed some concern about the layout; she was worried that we might run into copyright infringements if we printed the layout using the website images.  I did a little research, and found that you can use images from the website for "personal use", but my editor and I agreed a layout published in a magazine probably didn't count for that.  So I emailed Blizzard to ask what I could/should do.

The email went to a general Tech Support mailbox, so I had no idea when it would be received and a response sent.  Unfortunately, this was about 11am on a Thursday, and my article and layouts were due on Friday, so the editors could work it in to the magazine to be sent to the printers on Monday afternoon.  About 2:30pm Thursday, I dug around the Blizzard and WoW websites, looking for a phone number.  I called their tech support #, got a general email address for the PR department, and shot off an email to them, describing the situation and the fact that my deadline was the next day....

About 4:30pm, after a little more Google-ing, I found a press release issued by Blizzard, with a specific person's contact information.  So I shot off an email to him, too.  By 5pm, he had emailed me back AND called my cell phone.  Talk about immediate attention!

He had already gotten preliminary approval to use the images; he just needed to get final approval for the actual photo on the layout, because my son was holding the WoW guidebook, which is a copyrighted work.  (OY!)  My PR contact worked with Blizzard's Licensing and Business Development team to create a customized Content Use License (CUL) for me to sign, basically agreeing that the magazine article would be the only acceptable way I would use the images.  By noon Friday, the image use and CUL had been approved, they emailed it to me, and I faxed it back.

I was completely blown away and impressed with the personal and prompt attention -- I only got a hold of this guy not even 24 hours before, and here we were, legal documents already being drawn up.  I was also impressed that they agreed to the image use in the first place - not every company would agree to that, even though it's really just free publicity to appear in a magazine.  Still, I appreciated all their legwork in bringing the legal work together so promptly so I could meet my deadline -- as a thank you, I sent them a goodie box of a selection of Kansas City BBQ sauces.  (Turns out my PR contact there is a huge Food TV fan and watches a lot of BBQ championships/specials.  Score!)

So that's the story behind the layout you'll find on page 110 of the March 2007 issue of Memory Makers -- and I think I can safely say the story of the first scrapbooking licensing agreement between a designer and Blizzard Entertainment.  (Boy, did my husband have a great time gloating to his guildies that his wife had just "entered into a licensing agreement with Blizzard"!)

Let this story be a lesson to you all on the meaning of "personal use" and "copyrighted material" -- it's serious business, man.  Get permission to use that stuff on any layout you submit to a magazine, or you'll be caught in the same deadline crunch I was - what a heart attack those two days were!

technorati tags: scrapbooking, Memory+Makers, Blizzard, World+of+Warcraft, WoW

Comments

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I love this post as I too have geeks and now, they are into the second and newest update to this software WOW and couldn't wait for the new version and got it ASAP on release.

i enjoyed your foray into the official licensing issues and glad that the blizzard folks saw the benefit to helping you out. I just feel so connected with you by what we have in common, thanks for expressing the fun side of game playing geeks in your house and scrapping and sharing with us your readership.

Tamara