Chinese Justice

[savaughn]

I have not even spoken about "intellectual property". What do yo umean by that? I have mentioned copyright. That is hardly the same thing.
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In US law, "intellectual property" law, or IP law is the section of law that deals with things that aren't tangible physical objects. This includes things like data theft, copyright, trademark, patent, etc. While copyright law specifically might not cover some of the things you've listed, other decisions that have been made in the IP space would. While, for example, it would might difficult to prove copyright or trademark over a particular piece of database data, the data is considered to be real tangible property in the US. Property is not limited to physical/tangible items.

Unfortunately, the way the courts have decided on IP is radically different between the various countries, which makes it difficult to generalize on international topics. In the US, at least, if Blizzard could prove a tangible loss due to an end user manipulating their data in violation of their service agreement, they have a real case they are likely to win in the US. That said, the fact remains that trading goods inside of a game is an intended feature and the financial transactions of users outside of the game are ancillary, so I heartedly agree with your main point. Blizz won't be able to prove tangible loss because of this activity and that limits their actions to pulling people's accounts.

Of course, since your only recourse if you feel your account is incorrectly pulled is to initiate a lawsuit (which will run tens of thousands of dollars) Blizz can pretty much do this with impunity short of a class action.